Clegg questions Ashcroft cash

Nick Clegg has said that political party funding is a "scandal" and has again asked for Tory backer Lord Ashcroft to clarify his tax status.

In an interview with ePoltix.com the Liberal Democrat leader said there were unanswered questions over the Conservative Party's finances.

David Cameron had said that multi-millionaire deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft would make his tax status clear, following accusations that the peer was not a UK tax resident.

Clegg said: "It is an absolute scandal that parties are funded with such a lack of transparency.

"We still don't know how the Conservatives funded their last election campaign, we still don't know how David Cameron's constituency organisation is funded, and we still don't know what Lord Ashcroft's tax status is.

"When we tabled a bill in the House of Lords to make it illegal for anyone who are not tax residents in this country to take up their position in the second chamber, the Conservatives backed off from it - why did they do that? Was it to protect Lord Ashcroft?

"So there are lots of questions that demand answers and we need simple rules, a strict cap on donations made both from individuals and trade union members, strict rules on the money spent at and between general elections and total transparency of sources of money provided to each party."

Clegg also suggested that Lord Ashcroft's money had helped the Tories win the Crewe and Nantwich by-election but insisted the Lib Dems could win Thursday's Henley poll.

"We fight every by-election to win but it is a big ask as this has been a Conservative seat for generations and it's got a big Conservative majority with an outgoing MP Boris Johnson who was very popular," Clegg told ePolitix.

"Having said that, I don't believe in doing things by halves and I happen to know the area very well because I grew up around here - not in the nice Henley bit but in Chinnor which is in the north east of the constituency.

"Whilst parts of the constituency are very affluent, the image that the streets are paved with gold is not true, it is very mixed demographically.

"Crucially, this constituency has never really been properly contested before so what we are finding on the doorstep is that people are quite enthused that the Liberal Democrats are campaigning as vigorously as we are because they never really had a choice before."