So the Lord Ashcroft story is back on the airwaves, courtesy of a document leaked to the BBC. That document shows William Hague was “satisfied” with the discussions about Ashcroft’s undertakings in 2000 – so the Tories wheeled the shadow foreign secretary onto the Today programme to explain himself to Evan Davis. Three things struck me:
i) Stupidity rather than wrongdoing. When the Ashcroft story first broke a couple of weeks ago, Labour seemed eager to turn it into one of Tory wrongdoing – they called for inquiries left, right and centre (indeed, there’s one taking place today), in the apparent hope that they’d find something improper had gone on.
But the more that’s emerged, the less likely that has become. As Hague stressed earlier, today’s leaked documents highlight that various figures and bodies – from Sir Hayden Phillips to Downing Street – were either satisifed or aware that Ashcroft was meeting the terms of his undertaking by becoming resident in the UK.
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