Biggest Tory donor is tax dodger

“Tories’ dirty secret”. The Guardian has accused the British Conservative party of covering up the tax status of its deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft. Billionaire Ashcroft, who in 2005 revealed he had donated to the Conservative party sums in excess of £10 million, admitted 1 March that he is a “non-dom” - i.e. a non UK resident. “By keeping non-dom status,” the Guardian reports, “Lord Ashcroft avoided paying tens of millions of pounds in tax in the UK while sitting in the (House of) Lords and still bankrolling the Conservatives.” In 2000 Ashcroft was offered a peerage if he made a “solemn and binding” promise to become a permanent UK resident. But over the last ten years, both he and the Conservative party refused to answer question on his status. No-one, argues the London daily’s leader, “deserves privileged representation in public affairs unless they pay their fair measure of tax.”