Interview: Lord Ashcroft on The Times (Evening Standard)
By David Rowan
MICHAEL Ashcroft is back on the warpath. Six years after his inconclusive libel battle with The Times ended with an agreed front-page statement - personally brokered by Rupert Murdoch - the former Conservative Party treasurer is out to settle a few scores.
The Times, he now wants it known, is a sinister bastion of "criminality" and "dirty tricks", willing to break the law in a Labour-coordinated campaign to destroy party enemies such as himself. And if its "unscrupulous", "corrupt" and "lawbreaking" senior staff that he names are big enough to sue him - well, he seems more than eager to meet them in court.
The Conservative peer's self-published hardback, Dirty Politics, Dirty Times - subtitled My Fight with Wapping and New Labour - is being generously given away at the party's Blackpool conference this week, just as it was at Labour's Brighton gathering. Apparently the result of five years' research that "has not come easily nor cheaply", the book suggests an almost obsessive determination to wreak vengeance on Ashcroft's enemies at the paper and in government who falsely linked his vast fortune to money-laundering and drug-running. The Times, in particular, stands indicted for transgressions ranging from reporters' alleged recreational habits to accidentally misspelt bylines. So what is he hoping to achieve?
Ashcroft, 59, is more than keen to elaborate, although on terms which, like the book, allow little room for questions he considers unhelpful. During a 45-minute telephone interview from Blackpool, he aggressively dismisses as "hypothetical" any wider suspicions about his motives, hinting strongly that the conversation will end if he feels he is ceding control. He also raises this interviewer's freelance contributions to The Times, although he accepts that their non-political nature does not prejudice discussion of his extensively documented grievances.
His goal, he explains, is to focus attention "on the relationship between New Labour and certain journalists", notably Sir Peter Stothard, Times editor until 2002, and Tom Baldwin, former political reporter and new Washington correspondent. "A lot of journalists are accustomed to dishing it out, but they don't like it when they get some back," Ashcroft says. "If their behaviour was that of a politician, they would be screaming for that politician's resignation. They go after politicians as if it's the worst sin in the world being a hypocrite, yet this book is stashed with journalists on this newspaper being hypocritical in their behaviour."
Until now, he suggests, no one has had "the resources, the ability, the time or the courage" to expose what he alleges to be routine law-breaking by private investigators employed by the paper, nor its journalists' "collusion" with government to smear their mutual enemies. It is, he says, an evolving story "about how New Labour has sought to corrupt British journalism by planting stories which are smear and innuendo", using journalists "who, without any concern for their professional integrity, are prepared to lose their objectivity to slant the stories to suit the puppetmasters".
Ashcroft makes an unlikely moral crusader, his own secretive business dealings having aroused concern even within his own party. His righteously outraged tone also bears unfortunate echoes of the "simple sword of truth" wielded by Jonathan Aitken against The Guardian.
Yet unlike Aitken, Ashcroft largely personalises his attack, with particular venom reserved for Tom Baldwin, whose news stories have damaged a number of Labour's enemies. It was Baldwin, Ashcroft points out, who recently "exposed" John Humphrys' afterdinner remarks, and who, before the election, printed leaked comments from the Conservative MP Howard Flight which cost him his role as deputy party chairman.
Six years ago, Baldwin was central in The Times's investigation into Ashcroft's finances, a role, the peer claims, which extended to writing a speech for a Labour MP, "so the paper could print allegations that they didn't have the balls to run without the cover of parliamentary privilege".
Yet for all Baldwin's close links to Labour's inner circle, can his paper simply be accused of obediently carrying out the party's dirty work? "You're missing the point here," Ashcroft says sharply. "If you read the book, if you understand the Humphrys case, the Howard Flight case, the case of the Tory parliamentary candidate in Cornwall who happened to change a photograph around, and quite a number of other stories, [they] are deliberately fed in a smearing way, and written in a smearing way without balance or objectivity. I would want the debate to continue as to whether this is honest journalism."
A spokeswoman for The Times declines to comment on Ashcroft's claims, on its behalf or that of named individuals. But Ashcroft's critique does not end with Baldwin's writing. Repeatedly throughout the book, he makes extraordinarily defamatory remarks about the reporter's "lifestyle and habits". One suspects that Ashcroft hopes to goad Baldwin into suing - surely a high-risk strategy, even for a man of Ashcroft's self-belief.
"Being defamatory is not libellous," he corrects. "A lot of people fall into that trap. Something defamatory is libellous only if it's untrue. Newspapers name names all the time and they don't look upon it as a high-risk strategy. You do not have the luxury of knowing the evidence that I have had in order to produce the book."
Each chapter was vetted by a libel lawyer, he says. Yet the book is self-published under the imprint MAA Publications, derived from Ashcroft's own initials, and he has been giving away many of the initial 6,000 print run. Wouldn't an established publisher have offered greater credibility? Let people think what they want, he shoots back. "I did not give the final product to anybody to publish, as I wanted complete editorial independence myself." Right. "Any citizen who wants to write a book can do so himself these days. It hasn't been an issue."
He stresses that he has no quarrel with Robert Thomson, Stothard's "straight-shooting" successor as editor. "This is a historical perspective," he insists. Why, then, reheat old disputes against individuals still employed by the paper? "I didn't go and provoke this," he answers, somewhat evasively. "These guys came and mugged me, and now, what is this great sympathy for the muggers whose deceit is being exposed?"
In the book, he takes a childlike glee in baiting Times executives who remain in senior positions, delighting in "just how rattled" his "scrutiny" has made them. "Since senior figures at The Times and within the Labour Government chose to start the game," he writes, "they will have to play on until I blow the final whistle."
So his battle is likely to continue, however damaging it may prove to all parties involved? "David, David, if every man in society was cowed and didn't have the courage at times to do things ... " He laughs, as if relishing the gauntlet he is throwing down. "Come on, what are they going to do? If they think I'm telling untruths, sue me. If they think I've got it wrong, tell me. And if people don't think it's disgraceful, tell me - let me know that this is the standard which you guys in the journalists' trade regard as normal."
(Evening Standard, October 5 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
MICHAEL Ashcroft is back on the warpath. Six years after his inconclusive libel battle with The Times ended with an agreed front-page statement - personally brokered by Rupert Murdoch - the former Conservative Party treasurer is out to settle a few scores.
The Times, he now wants it known, is a sinister bastion of "criminality" and "dirty tricks", willing to break the law in a Labour-coordinated campaign to destroy party enemies such as himself. And if its "unscrupulous", "corrupt" and "lawbreaking" senior staff that he names are big enough to sue him - well, he seems more than eager to meet them in court.
The Conservative peer's self-published hardback, Dirty Politics, Dirty Times - subtitled My Fight with Wapping and New Labour - is being generously given away at the party's Blackpool conference this week, just as it was at Labour's Brighton gathering. Apparently the result of five years' research that "has not come easily nor cheaply", the book suggests an almost obsessive determination to wreak vengeance on Ashcroft's enemies at the paper and in government who falsely linked his vast fortune to money-laundering and drug-running. The Times, in particular, stands indicted for transgressions ranging from reporters' alleged recreational habits to accidentally misspelt bylines. So what is he hoping to achieve?
Ashcroft, 59, is more than keen to elaborate, although on terms which, like the book, allow little room for questions he considers unhelpful. During a 45-minute telephone interview from Blackpool, he aggressively dismisses as "hypothetical" any wider suspicions about his motives, hinting strongly that the conversation will end if he feels he is ceding control. He also raises this interviewer's freelance contributions to The Times, although he accepts that their non-political nature does not prejudice discussion of his extensively documented grievances.
His goal, he explains, is to focus attention "on the relationship between New Labour and certain journalists", notably Sir Peter Stothard, Times editor until 2002, and Tom Baldwin, former political reporter and new Washington correspondent. "A lot of journalists are accustomed to dishing it out, but they don't like it when they get some back," Ashcroft says. "If their behaviour was that of a politician, they would be screaming for that politician's resignation. They go after politicians as if it's the worst sin in the world being a hypocrite, yet this book is stashed with journalists on this newspaper being hypocritical in their behaviour."
Until now, he suggests, no one has had "the resources, the ability, the time or the courage" to expose what he alleges to be routine law-breaking by private investigators employed by the paper, nor its journalists' "collusion" with government to smear their mutual enemies. It is, he says, an evolving story "about how New Labour has sought to corrupt British journalism by planting stories which are smear and innuendo", using journalists "who, without any concern for their professional integrity, are prepared to lose their objectivity to slant the stories to suit the puppetmasters".
Ashcroft makes an unlikely moral crusader, his own secretive business dealings having aroused concern even within his own party. His righteously outraged tone also bears unfortunate echoes of the "simple sword of truth" wielded by Jonathan Aitken against The Guardian.
Yet unlike Aitken, Ashcroft largely personalises his attack, with particular venom reserved for Tom Baldwin, whose news stories have damaged a number of Labour's enemies. It was Baldwin, Ashcroft points out, who recently "exposed" John Humphrys' afterdinner remarks, and who, before the election, printed leaked comments from the Conservative MP Howard Flight which cost him his role as deputy party chairman.
Six years ago, Baldwin was central in The Times's investigation into Ashcroft's finances, a role, the peer claims, which extended to writing a speech for a Labour MP, "so the paper could print allegations that they didn't have the balls to run without the cover of parliamentary privilege".
Yet for all Baldwin's close links to Labour's inner circle, can his paper simply be accused of obediently carrying out the party's dirty work? "You're missing the point here," Ashcroft says sharply. "If you read the book, if you understand the Humphrys case, the Howard Flight case, the case of the Tory parliamentary candidate in Cornwall who happened to change a photograph around, and quite a number of other stories, [they] are deliberately fed in a smearing way, and written in a smearing way without balance or objectivity. I would want the debate to continue as to whether this is honest journalism."
A spokeswoman for The Times declines to comment on Ashcroft's claims, on its behalf or that of named individuals. But Ashcroft's critique does not end with Baldwin's writing. Repeatedly throughout the book, he makes extraordinarily defamatory remarks about the reporter's "lifestyle and habits". One suspects that Ashcroft hopes to goad Baldwin into suing - surely a high-risk strategy, even for a man of Ashcroft's self-belief.
"Being defamatory is not libellous," he corrects. "A lot of people fall into that trap. Something defamatory is libellous only if it's untrue. Newspapers name names all the time and they don't look upon it as a high-risk strategy. You do not have the luxury of knowing the evidence that I have had in order to produce the book."
Each chapter was vetted by a libel lawyer, he says. Yet the book is self-published under the imprint MAA Publications, derived from Ashcroft's own initials, and he has been giving away many of the initial 6,000 print run. Wouldn't an established publisher have offered greater credibility? Let people think what they want, he shoots back. "I did not give the final product to anybody to publish, as I wanted complete editorial independence myself." Right. "Any citizen who wants to write a book can do so himself these days. It hasn't been an issue."
He stresses that he has no quarrel with Robert Thomson, Stothard's "straight-shooting" successor as editor. "This is a historical perspective," he insists. Why, then, reheat old disputes against individuals still employed by the paper? "I didn't go and provoke this," he answers, somewhat evasively. "These guys came and mugged me, and now, what is this great sympathy for the muggers whose deceit is being exposed?"
In the book, he takes a childlike glee in baiting Times executives who remain in senior positions, delighting in "just how rattled" his "scrutiny" has made them. "Since senior figures at The Times and within the Labour Government chose to start the game," he writes, "they will have to play on until I blow the final whistle."
So his battle is likely to continue, however damaging it may prove to all parties involved? "David, David, if every man in society was cowed and didn't have the courage at times to do things ... " He laughs, as if relishing the gauntlet he is throwing down. "Come on, what are they going to do? If they think I'm telling untruths, sue me. If they think I've got it wrong, tell me. And if people don't think it's disgraceful, tell me - let me know that this is the standard which you guys in the journalists' trade regard as normal."
(Evening Standard, October 5 2005)
. . . AND READ MORE MEDIA INTERVIEWS HERE . . .
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