Baroness Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde, a member of the Lords committee that vetted Lord Ashcroft for his peerage ten years ago has now admitted that she had been shocked and surprised to hear two weeks ago that he was still not a full UK taxpayer. While giving testimony to a Commons select committee, the Baroness said she had assumed that Lord Ashcroft had fulfilled his undertaking to become a "permanent resident" of the UK - oddly enough it appears that William Hague thought the same thing.
The Times (March 18th) reported that the man himself - Lord Ashcroft and William Hague, the former Tory leader (who had an uneasy 20 minutes on BBC Radio 4's Today Programme) and who pushed the honour through, had both been invited to appear before the Commons Public Administration Committee in its special hearing on "propriety and peerages". The Times discreetly noted that both men refused to attend because they considered the Committee to be partisan.
Oddly enough the Committee's three Tory members also boycotted the hearing — giving its Labour MPs a clear run at their target. From David ('Call me Dave') Cameron's position the sooner this ends the better, but, I suspect that there is much more to come before a discreet veil is drawn over this sorry business.
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