Andrew Pierce observed in the Mail that Brexit bad boys Nigel Farage, Andy Wigmore, and Arron Banks were present at the launch of Lord Ashcroft’s unauthorised biography of Starmer, Red Flag, last week. Guido also spotted Sarah Pochin and Richard Tice in attendance…
Pierce dangles the prospect of a donor defection:
“Ashcroft reveals that it was the leadership of the Iron Lady that persuaded him to become a major Tory donor. Before she took over, he added: ‘I had drifted away from the party in the 1970s because, although a natural Tory, I had felt the party was out of touch with the elec- torate and its core supporters. Doesn’t that sound familiar?’ It does indeed.“
Ashcroft, who donated £320,000 to the Tory party last year, responded to that one this afternoon:
“I will give up on the Conservatives if they self-flagellate once again and replace Kemi Badenoch.”
Conclusive enough there…
The Jimmy Savile CPS scandal has reared its head again – this time in Lord Ashcroft’s new biography of Starmer, Red Flag. Co-conspirators will remember that two police forces – Surrey and Sussex – investigated Savile for 30 months over sex abuse allegations. The Crown Prosecution Service helped them. In October 2009 the CPS advised that the case should be dropped.
Starmer has always said that he was never aware the CPS even looked into Savile between 2007 and 2009 – he was DPP from October of 2008. A 2013 review commissioned by Starmer’s then-chief legal adviser Alison Levitt concluded that only one CPS lawyer (granted anonymity) handled the Savile inquiry before dropping it – the inference being that the mystery lawyer acted in isolation. Ashcroft asks in his book if this is plausible…
The book claims that between 2007 and 2009 Surrey Police informed other organisations about its investigation into Savile:
1. Surrey County Council’s children’s services.
2. Barnardo’s.
3. West Yorkshire Police child protection unit.
From 2008 several Sun journalists also knew Savile was under suspicion. Ashcroft writes:
“Savile was not some unknown figure. He was one of the most famous men in Britain, a stalwart of the BBC and the charity world, a knight of the realm, and a sometime friend of the royal family who had once been trusted by senior politicians including Margaret Thatcher… Who decided that Starmer should be kept in the dark about the Savile investigation?”
Starmer’s CPS colleague Alison Levitt, who cleared the organisation of wrongdoing in the matter, was given a political peerage in December of last year and sits in the House of Lords for the Labour Party. The media rounded on Boris for raising the CPS’ failure to pursue Savile despite Starmer claiming he would always carry the can for decisions taken by organisations he ran. Ashcroft raises awkward questions for the PM…
“A publishing source said the Labour leader ‘instructed friends and colleagues not to cooperate’ with Lord Ashcroft when he wrote the original biography. Arguing that ‘the question of why Starmer was so reluctant to face scrutiny in Red Knight remains,’ the source asked: ‘Was he hiding something?’”
Yesterday, Guido brought to light the story of a senior Labour party figure who is alleged to have fathered a child with another woman while his wife was pregnant, according to allegations in Michael Ashcroft’s explosive book Red Queen. It’s a story that has set tongues wagging amongst Lobby hacks – though some, who are in possession of the details, remain committed to a conspiracy of silence in expectation of an incoming Labour administration. Today Guido’s digging appears at the top of The Times diary column:
“It is rare for the desperate mud-slinging stage to come so early in an election campaign but Tory strategists were keen to draw attention to a paragraph buried in Michael Ashcroft’s recent biography of Angela Rayner. This wasn’t about the Labour deputy leader but an unnamed “senior party figure” who is alleged to have fathered a child out of wedlock while his wife was pregnant. The father’s name is not on the birth certificate, which led tongues to wag in the Red Lion. The story was looked into by journalists years ago and it came to nothing, but the Guido Fawkes blog is getting excited so naturally CCHQ think this could change things. Though they thought that 23 years ago when John Prescott thumped a voter and it only made Labour more popular.”
Stories that begin in diary columns have a way of ending up on the front pages…
Michael Ashcroft’s “Red Queen” biography of Angela Rayner has already generated a lot of headlines, Guido is of the view that the biggest story in the book is yet to be told. In an almost throw-away paragraph at the end of Chapter Nine in the book is an explosive tale:
“What is perhaps more intriguing is that, throughout this time, there was alarm bordering on paranoia in select Labour circles that the extramarital affair of a senior party figure other than Rayner was in danger of being exposed. Most damagingly, the male politician at the centre of the claims is said to have enjoyed a long-standing relationship with a woman that had lasted until after his own wife was pregnant with their first child. The politician’s lover, who is herself a public figure, then went on to have a child of her own. She left the name of her child’s father off her child’s birth certificate. This led to concerns that the Labour politician was in fact the child’s father, but there was no evidence to support that.”
It is a story that hacks are gossiping about in private, the story has been going around in legal circles for years and Guido hears that more than one newspaper is only now trying to stand the story up. Labour’s senior campaign operatives are well aware of the story and are said to have prepared a counter-strategy if it breaks during the election campaign.
Most Lobby hacks are aware of the name of the “senior party figure” in question and yet seem strangely incurious to investigate. Guido has however seen the birth certificate in question where the father’s name is left blank. Curious…
Given how a recent PM was asked over and over again about his private life before and once he was PM, including how many children he had, Lobby hacks seem strangely lacking in curiosity during this campaign. Perhaps we will have to wait for someone like Piers Morgan or Nick Robinson to ask the classic question “Have you ever been unfaithful to your wife?” Maybe Nick Ferrari could ask the same question he asked of Boris; “How many children do you have?”
Lord Ashcroft’s new poll will make more grim reading for the Tories. Labour poll higher than the government on every major political issue, from education and healthcare to the economy, Brexit and immigration. Crucially, and surprisingly, the public trust Labour more on defence than the Tories, from 22% to 15%. While war rages in Ukraine and the Middle East, it’s an issue that Downing Street would hope the public had faith in them about…
Guido consistently receives word from Tory MPs furious that Rishi Sunak still hasn’t committed to a date to increase defence spending to 2.5% of GDP yet. Meanwhile, Ashcroft’s analysis states Sunak should consider cutting his losses and head for an earlier election instead – things may only get worse. Labour tanks are firmly on the Tories’ lawn…
Sarah Pochin at Reform Scotland’s manifesto launch event: “I really wanted to come on in a Reform tartan burka, but apparently I wasn’t allowed… One day let’s do one of these events not live-streamed. We’ll do all the naughty stuff…”