Reporting Lord Ashcroft

Rather different views from right-of-centre commentators about the reporting of Lord Ashcroft's affairs. The conservative blogosphere is tending to regard any media coverage of the Conservatives' most generous donor as a leftie plot. A classic example here is the piece by Marc Glendenning (director of the anti-EU Democracy Movement) on Conservative Home, which singles out the Guardian for particular criticism. They just keep reporting on Ashcroft, opines Glendening, clear evidence of their out and out determination to destroy the Conservatives. He finds the reason in the Guardian's fear of losing revenue from public service job adverts which a future Tory government are going to put online. Well, it's a theory I suppose.

Meanwhile, the more rigorously independent Bagehot in the Economist, takes the right-wing press to task (notably the Mail and Telegraph) for not making enough of the Ashcroft affair:

Here we have a secretive figure who wields enormous influence in the Conservative Party and thus in the country. He once kept the party afloat and has accompanied William Hague, the man who got him ennobled, on official business. There is no doubt that Lord Ashcroft is an important public figure, whose tax status and "clear and unequivocal" assurances are of legitimate public interest.

Lord Ashcroft divides opinion, it seems, even on the right.