Book review: Dirty Politics, Dirty Times
“Dirty politics, Dirty Times – my fight with Wapping and New Labour”
Author: Michael Ashcroft
Published by Politico’s Media, ISBN: 1904734111
This is Lord Ashcroft's readable and interesting autobiography, which concentrates on giving his side of the attempts to blacken his reputation by an unholy alliance of New Labour spin-doctors seeking to damage the Conservative Party and Times Newspaper journalists seeking to create a story.
One of the worst legacies of the last fifteen years or so has been the extent that British politics and public life has become dominated by the tactics of personal destruction. Sadly, attacking the personal integrity of people who disagree with you or who are your rivals for office has become a routine political tactic.
The New Labour leadership have probably been the worst offenders from even before they were running the country, but they are far from being the only ones, and this book sheds an interesting light on how much some parts of the press have to answer for.
Michael Ashcroft is a self-made billionaire who has a strong involvement in politics both in Britain and Belize where he has business interests. During the main timeframe of the book he was Treasurer of the Conservative Party. He was giving the party a large amount of his time, and amounts of money which would be considerable to most people but were almost certainly worth much less to him than the time.
It is beyond doubt that Labour spin doctors, and the Times Newspaper, launched a strong attack on Michael Ashcroft's integrity, including attempts to block the peerage for which William Hague had nominated him. It is also beyond doubt that many of the charges made against Ashcroft were either disproved or withdrawn.
Obviously, this book gives one side of the story rather than an impartial account. Since the other side was spread all over many issues of The Times Newspaper and promoted by the whole weight of the government spin machine this hardly constitutes an unfair imbalance.
Personally I find this book entirely convincing: not everyone will agree. But even those readers who don't come away from the book with a positive view of Michael Ashcroft can and should learn two important things from the book.
The first and the most frightening lesson from the book is this. Ashcroft is one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Whether you like him or not, and whether you believe his side of the story or not, he is obviously also a very able, tough and determined character. But the book demonstrates that to clear his name he had to dig deep into his personal reserves of courage and determination, and use resources which would not be available to most people. He won his battle and is now Lord Ashcroft, but you wonder how many people, if subjected to the kind of attack which he came under, would have been able to clear their names. And as we have recently seen, a number of people on the other side of the political divide who are nearly as rich as Ashcroft have come under similar attack and have not yet been able to repair their reputations.
Ironically, since "Dirty Politics, Dirty Times" came out, the New Labour attack on Ashcroft described in the book has rebounded against themselves in a big way. The same basic argument they brought against Ashcroft - that a rich man who gives a lot of money to a political party must be doing so to buy favours - has been applied to their own donors, resulting in a criminal investigation as part of which Lord Levy, who is a close personal associate of the Prime Minister and Lord Ashcroft's closest equivalent on the Labour side, was arrested a few weeks ago. What goes around comes around.
Speaking as someone who cordially detests New Labour, I think that at least some of the people caught up in the "cash for peerages" scandal are probably innocent of wrongdoing but that they will still be damaged by association with Blair and Levy. Once New Labour let the genie of suspicion out of the bottle to attack Conservative donors and fundraisers there was always a good chance that it would turn on Labour donors and fundraisers, guilty and innocent alike. Even if Labour’s own hands had been totally clean - and at the very least, the accusation that their conduct has been a lot more hypocritical than Michael Ashcroft’s is unanswerable - launching an attack which could and did boomerang against themselves would have been foolish. Perhaps that is the most important lesson which this book illustrates.
Author: Michael Ashcroft
Published by Politico’s Media, ISBN: 1904734111
This is Lord Ashcroft's readable and interesting autobiography, which concentrates on giving his side of the attempts to blacken his reputation by an unholy alliance of New Labour spin-doctors seeking to damage the Conservative Party and Times Newspaper journalists seeking to create a story.
One of the worst legacies of the last fifteen years or so has been the extent that British politics and public life has become dominated by the tactics of personal destruction. Sadly, attacking the personal integrity of people who disagree with you or who are your rivals for office has become a routine political tactic.
The New Labour leadership have probably been the worst offenders from even before they were running the country, but they are far from being the only ones, and this book sheds an interesting light on how much some parts of the press have to answer for.
Michael Ashcroft is a self-made billionaire who has a strong involvement in politics both in Britain and Belize where he has business interests. During the main timeframe of the book he was Treasurer of the Conservative Party. He was giving the party a large amount of his time, and amounts of money which would be considerable to most people but were almost certainly worth much less to him than the time.
It is beyond doubt that Labour spin doctors, and the Times Newspaper, launched a strong attack on Michael Ashcroft's integrity, including attempts to block the peerage for which William Hague had nominated him. It is also beyond doubt that many of the charges made against Ashcroft were either disproved or withdrawn.
Obviously, this book gives one side of the story rather than an impartial account. Since the other side was spread all over many issues of The Times Newspaper and promoted by the whole weight of the government spin machine this hardly constitutes an unfair imbalance.
Personally I find this book entirely convincing: not everyone will agree. But even those readers who don't come away from the book with a positive view of Michael Ashcroft can and should learn two important things from the book.
The first and the most frightening lesson from the book is this. Ashcroft is one of the richest and most powerful men in the world. Whether you like him or not, and whether you believe his side of the story or not, he is obviously also a very able, tough and determined character. But the book demonstrates that to clear his name he had to dig deep into his personal reserves of courage and determination, and use resources which would not be available to most people. He won his battle and is now Lord Ashcroft, but you wonder how many people, if subjected to the kind of attack which he came under, would have been able to clear their names. And as we have recently seen, a number of people on the other side of the political divide who are nearly as rich as Ashcroft have come under similar attack and have not yet been able to repair their reputations.
Ironically, since "Dirty Politics, Dirty Times" came out, the New Labour attack on Ashcroft described in the book has rebounded against themselves in a big way. The same basic argument they brought against Ashcroft - that a rich man who gives a lot of money to a political party must be doing so to buy favours - has been applied to their own donors, resulting in a criminal investigation as part of which Lord Levy, who is a close personal associate of the Prime Minister and Lord Ashcroft's closest equivalent on the Labour side, was arrested a few weeks ago. What goes around comes around.
Speaking as someone who cordially detests New Labour, I think that at least some of the people caught up in the "cash for peerages" scandal are probably innocent of wrongdoing but that they will still be damaged by association with Blair and Levy. Once New Labour let the genie of suspicion out of the bottle to attack Conservative donors and fundraisers there was always a good chance that it would turn on Labour donors and fundraisers, guilty and innocent alike. Even if Labour’s own hands had been totally clean - and at the very least, the accusation that their conduct has been a lot more hypocritical than Michael Ashcroft’s is unanswerable - launching an attack which could and did boomerang against themselves would have been foolish. Perhaps that is the most important lesson which this book illustrates.
Comments
I have therefore deleted an anonymous post which I consider to be potentially actionable.
The first part of the post, which was not actionable, read as follows:
"If you believe this, I have some swamp land in southern Florida for sale - real cheap... AS IF! "
It isn't just me who thinks that Michael Ashcroft was the subject of a nasty and unfair attack. Ashcroft took the Labour government to court and won an apology, an admission that they had encouraged public servants to say hostile things about him which could not be justified, and his costs.
He also argues in his book it would have been wrong not to fight to become a peer because it would have created a precedent, as all Tory Party national treasurers were honoured in this way. I’m sure most members of the public will find this latter point of interest, as they no doubt believe people are made peers for outstanding services to the public or as performers of good works.
You place a great deal of emphasis on the fact he is a ‘self-made’ extremely rich man. Rich – yes. Self-made? Now we really are entering the realm of fairy tales surely? Didn’t Thatcher’s hero Adam Smith argue ‘labour was the source of all wealth'? Ashcroft must be a phenomenal labourer. More power to his elbow.
Malc Cowle
Michael Ashcroft promised to become mainly resident in the UK, and to pay UK tax: he is and he does.
Non-dom status, which all MPs and peers will now be required to surrender, does not allow its holders to avoid UK tax on their UK income.
Non-doms do pay UK tax on the income they earn in the UK, but they pay tax on money earned in other countries in those countries.
I strongly support the new law which means that all UK legislators will be required to be full UK taxpayers. But the Labour attacks on Lord Ashcroft over this are pure hypocrisy given that they received more money from non-dom donors, than the Conservatives did, and that several of Labour's non-dom donors were also appointed as peers or to important positions by the last government.
On the 1st March this year, almost ten years after Blair made him a peer, Lord Ashcroft made a public statement confirming he was a Non-Dom and it wasn't until June this year that he issued a statement saying he had now ended that position. Of course the UK is not the only country where he has avoided paying tax. In his book he claims he had an agreement with his adopted country, Belize, not to pay tax there for thirty years. At the end of September this year he was at the centre of more controversy over the 'perfectly legal' avoidance of over £3 million of inheritance tax. Your raising the question of other peers' nom-dom status does not impress me. Two wrongs do not make a right. They are all in the wrong as are we, the British electorate, for having allowed this situation to exist. It is reminiscent of the 1800s when seats in both Houses were bought and sold and favours won through donations to political parties.
All should be ashamed for trying to defend this man, for they are defending the indefensible.
I presume with regard to my other points on which you haven't commented we are in broad agreement. I find that thought most gratifying.
Best Wishes
Malc Cowle
Ashcroft declares his UK earnings to the Inland Revenue and pays tax on them. Therefore it is twisting the facts to accuse him of avoiding UK tax.
As I have repeatedly make clear, I support the new law which bars Members of both the Commons and the Lords, of all parties, from being non-doms. I think it is time for this sort of thing to stop, from all sides.
I don't think a reasonable person can blame Conservatives for returning the charge of hypocrisy against criticism of Conservative non-doms from the Labour party, which received even more money from non-dom donors, and which also gave honours and positions to those donors. Or against any other critics who were not even-handed in criticising all the major parties.
A pity William Hague and Tony Blair didn't come to the same conclusion when the former lobbied for Ashcroft to be made a peer and the latter acquiesced. Perhaps it was just a question of Dirty Politics or maybe Dirty Money. On the other hand it could have been both.
Regards - Malc Cowle
Never mind. I'm glad we agree on the major point that politics will be better for the new law which applies to all sides.