Oh dear. The big question mark over Lord Ashcroft’s tax status doesn’t seem to be going away. With formal requests currently in motion for the big-time donor’s status to be clarified, journalists have been pushing senior Tories for a straight answer.
The Information Commissioner has condemned their “evasive and obfuscatory” responses, but still the finely crafted answers that could be straight out of a political satire come thick and fast. It sounds like Conservative HQ is administering some serious media training.
Rule one: deflect from the specifics to the general — in this case, answer questions on Lord Ashcroft’s tax status with a general statement on Tory policy. Rule two: say something confusing, or try to turn the argument on its head. Rule three: if those fail, claim ignorance.
For these rules in action, listen to Sir George Young, shadow leader of the Commons, on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning (ironically, he was criticising the “grey area” of parliamentary privilege).
Question: Of course there’s one big question that hangs over your party, doesn’t it, which relates your deputy chairman Michael Ashcroft, and what his tax status really is. What are the conditions that were applied when he was awarded a life peerage?
George Young: On the question of tax status, there was an all-party amendment on Tuesday to the corporate governance and constitution bill that’s now going through, that makes it clear that, as from next year, anybody in the House of Lords is deemed to be domiciled for tax purposes. I hope that resolves the issue. They’ll all have to pay tax like they were you or me.
Q: But it’s still quite interesting to know what the man financing a lot of the election campaign activities — what his status is?
GY: I think his total funding since the last election is about 5 per cent of the Tory party.
Q: That’s a considerable amount of funding to come from one individual, isn’t it? Conditions were applied to him, as I understand it, when he became a life peer, that he was resident for tax in the UK. Is that your understanding of it?
GY: My understanding is that there is, at the moment, a Freedom of Information request to the Cabinet Office, to clarify exactly what the undertakings were. I think one has to let that take its course.
Q: Wouldn’t it be better for your deputy chairman to just tell us what the conditions were, rather than digging around in the Cabinet Office? He’s perfectly free to tell us, isn’t he?
GY: Well I think that’s a matter for Lord Ashcroft rather than for me to clarify.
Q: He’s your deputy chairman. It’s a party matter!
GY: But it’s an undertaking which he gave to another body and that body has been asked for documents. I don’t know what those documents contain. We have to wait for the Freedom of Information process to complete its course. I’m sorry, but I just can’t shed any light on this.
The Tory shadow foreign secretary William Hague’s performance on the Andrew Marr Show yesterday was no less controlled. Note the specific-to-general transition, and the attempt to turn the heat on to the opposition.
Andrew Marr: The Information Commissioner says that “statements by senior politicians concerning Lord Ashcroft’s undertaking” — that’s on tax — “have been evasive and obfuscatory”. Now can you, therefore, tell me whether or not he pays tax in this country?
William Hague: Well, let me give you something that’s not at all evasive and obfuscatory. David Cameron has called, and the government have then come into line with that, for all members of both Houses of Parliament to be treated as if they’re fully resident and domiciled in the United Kingdom for tax purposes — with no ifs and buts whatsoever — from the next financial year. Lord Ashcroft has said that causes him no difficulty at all, and that he will still be sitting there in the House of Lords under those rules . . .
AM: . . . You gave a very, very clear statement about your policy. You didn’t give quite such a clear statement to the question: does he pay tax as a British taxpayer, as a British citizen? Which is a very straightforward question.
WH: Well, I’ll give you another clear statement, which is that when he was made a peer in the year 2000, he was asked to give certain guarantees about that and he then implemented those guarantees — and he’s assured me that he did. Although what they were in detail was defined between him and the Inland Revenue at the time. I am not a party to that any more than the —
AM (over): But he’s a very key figure.
WH: — Labour Party is a party to all those people in the House of Lords, some of whom are non-domiciled and so on, but who give donations to the Labour Party.
They’re not budging. But the clock is ticking — on 1 February, the Cabinet Office was ordered to reveal within 35 days the nature of the undertaking Ashcroft made regarding tax in the UK when he became a peer in 2000. Roll on, 8 March!
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