Lord Ashcroft's election inside story
CONSERVATIVE Party donor Lord Ashcroft is to deliver a public postmortem of the party’s election performance.
The controversial billionaire peer, who bankrolled David Cameron’s drive to capture key marginals, will speak at a party conference fringe event hosted by the ConservativeHome website.
It will be the first time the peer, who finally revealed his non-domiciled tax status earlier this year after decades of speculation, has spoken publicly about election tactics.
In private Lord Ashcroft, who pumped £5million into the battle for marginal seats, was said to be angry Mr Cameron failed to stand up for him in the political row over his tax status, believing it damaged the party. He was also thought to be unhappy at Mr Cameron’s decision to take part in televised leader’s debates, which gave the Lib Dems an early surge.
Lord Ashcroft was yesterday reported to be in talks with the Prime Minister about a significant future role in the party.
The party’s deputy chairman had announced after the election three months ago he would stand down from politics altogether. Speculation was growing that he had been instrumental in the resignation of controversial party treasurer David Rowland last week.
