Hopes among Conservative election strategists that events would transpire to allow a tactical shift away from the dodgy ground of political donations, tax-havens & non-dom status took a knock yesterday. Leaked cabinet papers and other revelations which emerged before and during a slightly stage-managed session of the Commons Public Administration Committee have ensured that the Ashcroft Chronicles will now run to several volumes.
Today’s papers discuss the fallout and the Guardian reflects on William Hague’s vulnerability for being too closely associated with the man from Belize who might have said yes but apparently meant something else.
The Times focuses on the role of James Arbuthnot, chief whip under former tory leader Hague, and how circumstances might have allowed a 'misunderstanding to arise' over the final agreement – following what is later described as a four-month campaign to enable the peer to avoid millions of pounds in UK tax.
The Independent recounts statements over how the vetting committee which approved Ashcroft’s entrance to the Lords was misled about his non-dom tax status.
But it takes the Telegraph to finally re-establish a sense of perspective by balancing claims by their Lordships at having the woolsack pulled over their eyes with a story on how the union Unite secured £18m from taxpayers in ‘a money-laundering’ deal with Labour’. So there!
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