Lord Ashcroft interview: why I am stepping down from party I helped get elected

Lord Ashcroft’s decision to quit as the Tories' Deputy Chairman on the eve of the party conference will surprise Westminster. Here, in an exclusive interview with Andrew Alderson, he reflects on keeping friends and fighting foes

Lord Ashcroft at his Westminster HQ
'Job done': Lord Ashcroft at his Westminster HQ

Lord Ashcroft of Chichester is like Marmite: people tend to love him or loathe him. He makes similar assessments of those he meets: they are quickly regarded as “home team”, meaning they are expected to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him in a crisis, or “away team”, meaning they are liable to try to do him down. He cheerfully admits he is a good friend but a bad enemy.

For many years, his “home team” has included Tory political heavyweights such as Margaret Thatcher, William Hague and Michael Ancram, and the “away team” has featured New Labour, the BBC and senior Left-wing newspaper journalists who have made it their mission to try to engineer his public downfall.

Of the two camps, David Cameron, the Prime Minister and the leader of the Conservatives since 2005, is most definitely “home team”. It was Lord Ashcroft’s wife, Susi, who, after a day campaigning with the youthful MP for Witney many years ago, first persuaded her billionaire businessman husband that Mr Cameron had the requirements to be a future party leader.

Yet now Lord Ashcroft has privately told the Prime Minister that he is stepping down as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party on September 27 – a few days before the party conference. His decision will end recent speculation that he intended to continue to play a prominent role in the party’s hierarchy.

“Job done,” he said, in a rare interview at his personal headquarters in the heart of Westminster. It was a reference to his work prior to the general election in which he masterminded the party’s polling and the marginal seats campaign.

In fact, though, only half the “job” was done. The Conservatives won most seats but without an overall majority, meaning they had to forge an alliance with the Liberal Democrats to ensure that Mr Cameron, not Gordon Brown, was asked by the Queen to form a government. Although Lord Ashcroft’s office is a stone’s throw from Lib Dem HQ, he and Nick Clegg’s party are not natural allies.

So was the election result a triumph or a failure? “There’s no point pretending I wasn’t disappointed. We all were. Having worked for so long with such high hopes, it’s obviously frustrating not to have won outright,” he said.

Lord Ashcroft, who tomorrow publishes a tough critique of his party’s election strategy, said: “Something like 82 per cent of voters said before the election that it was 'time for change’, but only 36 per cent ended up voting Conservative. Obviously, there was a gap between the change they wanted and the change they thought we represented. That is largely because we had not completely mended the Conservative brand.

“We spent too much time attacking Gordon Brown and Labour, rather than setting out our own plans. People had decided they wanted change – the thing they were not sure about was the alternative we were offering, so going on and on about Labour missed the point. By the time of the TV debates, people were still not sure we had really changed or what it was we wanted to do, which gave Nick Clegg his chance.”

Despite widespread speculation that Lord Ashcroft and Mr Cameron have had a fallout, the Tory peer insists that is not the case. “We have a very good, constructive relationship,” he said. “I think that from the moment he became leader – well before that, actually – he grasped what the problem was with the Conservative Party. He realised that we had lost touch with large numbers of people who ought to have been voting for us; that people thought we were untrustworthy and old-fashioned. He has gone a long way to putting that right. And, although we didn’t get a majority at the election, we gained more seats than we’ve managed to do for 80 years.”

Dressed in a navy suit and open-neck pale blue shirt, Lord Ashcroft said he will take a step back from the hurly-burly of day-to-day politics. “I took a very active role in opposition, but now I am going to concentrate on other things,” he said.

Over the past two decades, Lord Ashcroft has donated an estimated £15 million to the party that he has supported since he was an impoverished student. He is a self-made man who made his early millions through cleaning, security and service companies. He says he will continue to be a party donor but will give less than when he “led from the front” as party treasurer from 1998 to 2001 under Mr Hague’s leadership, and turned around the party’s dire financial position.

“The party is actually in pretty good shape financially, which is a great credit to Michael Spencer [the outgoing treasurer] and his team. They raised even more money than we were allowed to spend in the election campaign, so I’m not sure they need me for now,” he said.

Lord Ashcroft, who is twice married and has three grown-up children by his first wife, is a political bruiser. His style – controversial, at times aggressive, or even ruthless – has brought his party mixed publicity, and his critics have sneered at the fact that he was a Belize-based tax exile for years. As well as claims from years ago that he “owned” the party, there was unwelcome publicity this March when he was forced to admit in the run-up to the May election that he had enjoyed the status of a “non-dom” – and had not been paying income tax on his worldwide earnings. Critics tried to portray him as dishonourable, and claimed he had reneged on an earlier pledge.

Lord Ashcroft is fiercely dismissive of any suggestion that he cost the party crucial votes – or that he lacks integrity. “These things never help, of course, but I don’t think it was a big factor in the scheme of things. It’s the bigger picture that determines how people vote, not side issues like that, however much the Left-wing media, like the BBC, go on about them.”

Seated in the vast company boardroom where he has clinched so many business deals, Lord Ashcroft appears to choose his words carefully when asked if he felt the Tory leadership backed him sufficiently over the row. “I think they could have mounted a more spirited defence of the situation. It did prove to me that the Labour Party attack team was much more effective than the Conservative Party defence team. The negotiations [in 2000] with the [Labour] government for me to join the House of Lords did not include any commitment on my part to be taxed on my worldwide income.”

Loyalty is high on his list of priorities. Mr Hague stood firmly by him when the peer was at the centre of controversy in the build-up to the 2001 election and Lord Ashcroft is now equally protective of his friend, who has been at the centre of intense speculation over the nature of his friendship with Christopher Myers, his former special adviser. “I wouldn’t want such a statesman as William Hague, one of the best politicians of this generation, to be disenchanted with politics because of a storm in a teacup,” he said. He does not think Mr Hague aspires to lead the party again, adding: “Nor do I think he will make a future career out of politics – and it will be a poorer place without him.”

And what are his views on the Coalition? “So far, so good. It’s early days but so far I think things are holding together pretty well. They have been quite bold about setting out the need for cuts, which is the right thing to do. It’s good to see that they have hit the ground running.”

But is he uneasy over some of its policies? “Like any entrepreneur – in fact, like any aspirational voter – I instinctively dislike the very high rates of tax that Labour left us with. We need the economy to grow, so any disincentive to invest and create jobs is clearly counterproductive. I know the Chancellor appreciates that. Obviously, he has very little room for manoeuvre, given the state of the public finances, but as things improve I hope that is something he will be able to deal with.” Yet Lord Ashcroft believes that the Tories can and will get a majority at the next election – helped by the marginal seats team that he set up and still hugely respects.

Since the election, the Tory peer has continued to be a powerful figure in the party. Senior Conservatives have said he was instrumental in the resignation last month of David Rowland, the property tycoon, as treasurer of the party – weeks before he was due to take up the post. Lord Ashcroft declined to confirm or deny whether he had played a role in Mr Rowland’s exit, but he did confirm that he had not been consulted over the appointment.

Although Lord Ashcroft is 65 next year, he has no intention of walking away from the multi-million-pound business deals that still excite him. Indeed, his reduced political commitments mean he has more time to launch business ventures, particularly media ones. A year ago, he bought controlling stakes in two influential websites, ConservativeHome and PoliticsHome.

Lord Ashcroft, who along with all members of the House of Lords now pays income tax in the UK on his worldwide earnings, says these interests will expand further. “I believe the future of the media is the internet, and clearly I am a political animal. But I don’t believe it is in my commercial interests to explain to my competitors what my future plans are.”

He adds mischievously: “I may even ask Jeremy Hunt [the Culture Secretary] if I could help him with the issues facing the BBC.” Senior BBC executives, along with the Left-wing newspaper editors who, he believes, have spent years trying to smear him, are not on Lord Ashcroft’s Christmas card list.

By stepping away from day-to-day politics, he will also have more time for his multi-million-pound charity work. In less than two months’ time, he will unveil the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum. It is being built with a £5 million donation from him and will house his pride and joy: a 160-plus collection of Victoria Cross medals, built up since 1986 and now worth an estimated £30 million. Lord Ashcroft has had a lifelong interest in bravery: his latest book, George Cross Heroes, is published next month to accompany a four-part television series of the same name.

He has stated that, when he dies, 80 per cent of his estate will go to a charity foundation. One thing is certain: on his birthday next March he will not be collecting his bus pass and retiring to tend his rose garden.

“I get more ambitious every decade, and I am more ambitious today than ever before,” he said. “I still love the game – and the thrill of the chase.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/8011120/Lord-Ashcroft-interview-why-I-am-stepping-down-from-party-I-helped-get-elected.html