With Lord Ashcroft notably absent in the days and weeks following the release of Call Me Dave, guests at the book’s official launch at Millbank Tower waited with anticipation for Ashcroft to make his grand entrance. However, when it came time for the speeches, it fell on the book’s publisher Iain Dale to break the news to guests that he was not coming, instead playing a video by way of explanation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHNkVEoS8C0
While guests — including Neil Hamilton and Owen Paterson — first took the Channel 5 Belize video to be a spoof, it soon became clear that Lord Ashcroft had been taken ill following the release of the biography, after suffering renal failure, liver and kidney failure, as well as septic shock. This left Ashcroft in intensive care for 18 days, though his condition has since improved.
In his absence, it fell on Dale to read out Ashcroft’s speech on his behalf, with Ashcroft saying he was sad not to have been able to join his co-author Isabel Oakeshott for media appearances in the aftermath of the piggate claims:
‘My poor health over the past month has meant that my co-author, Isabel Oakeshott, and my publisher, Iain Dale, have – with support from my private office – been left to defend the book on their own.
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