Bray on Ashcroft…but what if it’s true?
New PR blogger Stephen Bray is critical of David Cameron’s handing of the Ashcroft affair, counselling that failure to act decisively years ago means that, ‘the Conservatives’ claims to have changed, to no longer be the party of privilege, to no longer be in the pockets of the rich and influential, are looking decidedly shaky.’
Stephen has fallen into two traps here. The first is offering advice that begins, ‘I wouldn’t start from here if I were you’ which is never of any use to anyone and secondly by failing to ask if the allegation that Cameron leads a ‘party of privilege, no longer in the pockets of the rich and influential’ is actually true.
Lord Ashcroft bankrolled the Conservatives through a dark period and they nominated from a peerage on condition that he become a UK resident for tax purposes… or so everyone thought. He didn’t become resident and those he may have misled include then prime minister Tony Blair and the Queen.
Throughout this time Tories consistently failed to take the Stephen Bray approach of being open and honest. They refused to speak to Electoral Commission’s Ashcroft inquiry and even now refuse to co-operate with a House of Commons enquiry.
The real problem appears to be not that Conservative claims to have changed are looking shaky, but that they are shaky.
The problem for Cameron is that changing an organisation like the Conservative Party — assuming that is what he wants to do — is a long term project (and at the time they needed the money). Any other organisation going through cultural change would need to first be honest with itself and admit where it was. It would then need key stakeholders to buy into change and work with them openly and honestly.
But Cameron has never felt he has the time for that and now it’s too late. Perhaps he’s unashamed of his own privileged background and doesn’t really want to change. So instead of being open and honest, the Conservatives must do all they can to deflect attention from their failings and cover up.
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