General Ramblings

Where is the money coming from for the big Tory election campaign now prematurely launched in Grimsby & Cleethorpes? There’s a confetti of leaflets, big posters telling us the Tories are coming (next week bubonic plague) and flights over the town to film the rubble it’s been reduced to by years of Labour neglect. From that height you can’t see the new Sure Starts, schools, medical centres, the auditorium or the Riverhead shopping centre.

My guess is it’s coming from Belize through the vast coffers of Lord Ashcroft. It’s illegal for political parties to receive donations from individuals not on the UK electoral register. Only companies registered in the UK can make donations, subject to some provisos. The Electoral Commission is now investigating Lord Ashcroft’s contributions to local Conservative associations through Bearwood, which effectively disguise the real source of money.

It comes from Bearwood Corporate Services, a company ultimately controlled by Lord Ashcroft. Lord Ashcroft says in his autobiography say that he controls and directs this. It is not handing out several million pounds out of goodwill. The affairs of Bearwood are made opaque by control through secretive tax havens. Southtown Limited is one of Bearwood's directors and Northtown Limited acts as its company secretary. Both are registered in the secretive British Virgin Islands and do not reveal any information about their affairs. The information held by the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) shows that both are part of the Ashcroft empire. Money isn’t being given to the Tory party for national campaigning, where funding is restricted, it’s being given to constituency campaigns, but the result is the same - it is to achieve social engineering to Lord Ashcroft's liking. Despite numerous attempts Tories won't tell us whether he pays UK taxes.