A billionaire former Conservative donor and party treasurer has denied taking revenge on British prime minister David Cameron after writing a biography filled with embarrassing allegations.
The Daily Mail on Monday published an initial extract from Call Me Dave under the headline, "Drugs, debauchery and the book that lays Dave bare". The coverage, splashed across the front and six inside pages, centred on claims of drug-taking and lurid exploits during Mr Cameron's time at Oxford university.
The claims appear in a "warts and all" book co-written by Lord Ashcroft, former deputy chairman of the Conservative party who fell out with Mr Cameron after failing to secure a top job in his government in 2010.
The book claims Mr Cameron knew about Lord Ashcroft’s non-domicile tax status in 2009, a year before it became public knowledge.
It also suggests cocaine was taken during parties at Mr Cameron’s house – although not necessarily with his knowledge – and that he had smoked marijuana.
The book accuses Mr Cameron of being involved, during his student days, with a debauched Oxford dining club named the Piers Gaveston Society, in honour of a supposed lover of Edward II in the early 1300s.
It was during a Gaveston initiation that a particularly lurid ritual was said to have occurred, involving Mr Cameron and the head of a dead pig. However, one ally said on Monday the prime minister had never belonged to the society.
Tight-lipped
Downing Street was tight-lipped. “I’m not going to dignify this book by offering any comment or reaction to it,” a spokesperson said.
Lord Ashcroft has insisted his book, co-written with Isabel Oakeshott, former political editor of the Sunday Times, was objective and "not about settling scores".
But he conceded in an opinion piece for the Mail that his relationship with the prime minister had become "strained" over what he saw as a derisory job offer as a junior whip in the Foreign Office. "After putting my neck on the line for nearly 10 years . . . and after ploughing some £8m into the party, I regarded it as a declinable offer," he said. "It would have been better if Cameron had offered me nothing at all."
A 2007 biography of Mr Cameron suggested he had been suspended from Eton for smoking marijuana. On that occasion George Osborne, now Chancellor, said: "It's not been denied by David but he's also said that we are not in the business of saying that politicians can't have a private life before they come into politics."
Act of revenge
Many will see the book as an act of revenge by the peer, who has been edged out of Mr Cameron’s inner circle.
An ally of Mr Cameron said he used to pull faces while on the phone to the peer, whose presence he found increasingly unwelcome.
Lord Ashcroft’s money was seen as a key factor as the party wrested back seats from Labour in the 2010 election.
Five years ago the Conservative peer was at the centre of a scandal after the party admitted he did not pay UK tax on earnings outside Britain.
Lord Ashcroft had promised William Hague in 2000, when the latter was Tory leader, that he would take up permanent UK residence. It later emerged the peer was declaring only his British income, not his overseas income, to the exchequer.
The book says Mr Cameron had known about Lord Ashcroft’s tax status for a year. But when the story broke, his spokesman said Mr Cameron had known for only about a month.
– Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2015