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28 February 2013

Commons Confidential: Lord Ashcroft discusses election strategy with Labour

The disaffected Tory businessman privately met the shadow cabinet member Douglas Alexander, reports Kevin Maguire.

By Kevin Maguire

Who knows where the Tory peer Michael Ashcroft’s estrangement from David Cameron will end? The billionaire international man of mystery and one-time deputy chairman of the Conservatives, who over the years has bunged the party £10m, has let it be known, as we say in Westminster, that he’s unlikely to reopen his wallet for Cameron. Lord Cashcroft of Belize, still sore after Dave’s mob dumped on him when he was forced to confess before the 2010 election that he’d been avoiding taxes as a non-dom, is no fan of the hired attack dingo Lynton Crosby, and is therefore loath to contribute to the Aussie’s £200,000-plus deal with the Tories. Instead, the tycoon is carving out a niche for himself as The Pollfather; the word is that he spends more on voter research than all of Britain’s other political parties combined. Intriguingly, I hear the disaffected Tory businessman privately met the shadow cabinet member Douglas Alexander to discuss election strategy. He’s chatted with other senior Labour figures, too, both in the Commons and the Lords. Ashcroft slipping Labour a few bob may be unlikely, but it would be the ultimate revenge on Cameron.

Did George Osborne have a doppelgänger at Oxford? The picture (above) of an astrologer from a 1991 copy of the Rumpus, a scurrilous magazine produced by loaded chums of the chancellor-to-be, is thought by a generation of students to be the Buller Boy as a stargazer. Indeed, a female contemporary of Osborne’s is certain it is Boy George, as was I when the NSreader Richard Johnson disinterred the mag from the archive of the Oxfordshire History Centre. Not so, insist the Chancellor’s minions. The figure in Sgt Pepper garb may resemble Osborne but, the Treasury insists, it isn’t our man. Pity – otherwise Boy George might have seen the downgrade by the credit rating agency Moody’s coming.

What a romantic that Ed Miliband turns out to be. In an interview with the Guardian on Valentine’s Day, the Labour leader hinted coyly there “may also be a surprise” for his wife, Justine, on top of a Chinese takeaway. And what was that “surprise” – a Smythson handbag, slinky lingerie, tickets for the Chippendales? No. Aides giggle that it was flowers. And on Valentine’s Day, too. Bet she didn’t expect that. In other Miliband surprises, Labour will issue a manifesto at the 2015 election.

Attempts by Ed Balls to jog anonymously in preparation for a second slog around the 26 miles of the London Marathon are undermined, I gather, by a fluorescent bobble hat with his black Lycra training outfit. My snout, whose eye was caught by overly bright headwear, muttered that the shadow chancellor resembles a semi mobile dark chocolate cake with a green sweet on top.

Kevin Maguire is the associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror

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