57 Facts About Michael Ashcroft

Michael Ashcroft is a former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party.

Michael Ashcroft was created a life peer in 2000, and sat on the Conservative benches of the House of Lords until resigning in 2015.

Michael Ashcroft's father Eric was a British colonial civil servant; Ashcroft spent some of his early years in British Honduras and Malawi.

In 1967, Michael Ashcroft joined Carreras Tobacco as a management trainee.

Michael Ashcroft left Carreras in 1969, joining Pritchard Services Group, a cleaning and business services company, after several months unemployed.

Michael Ashcroft used Hawley to make a series of acquisitions, transforming the company into a business services group, ranging from janitorial services for hospitals and offices, to car auction services, and later with a focus on the security services industry.

In 1987, Michael Ashcroft bought out the existing shareholders of Wickins' BCA via Hawley Goodall.

Michael Ashcroft disposed of large amounts of the Tyco stock which he had acquired as a result of the sale of ADT, stating that he needed the capital to diversify into other things and that he never retained a substantial stake in any enterprise which he did not control.

Michael Ashcroft nevertheless continued as a non-executive director of Tyco, a role he still held in 2002 when Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski was arrested in New York in connection with personal tax offences.

Unease had already been expressed at Tyco at some of Kozlowski's corporate decisions and Michael Ashcroft was amongst the directors who appointed lawyer David Boies to investigate irregularities in the company.

Michael Ashcroft has close business and other connections with the Commonwealth country of Belize, and served as the country's ambassador to the United Nations between 1998 and 2000.

Barrow warned David Cameron that relations with the United Kingdom would be damaged if Michael Ashcroft were given a senior position in government.

Michael Ashcroft has significant interests in the following companies quoted on the Alternative Investment Market: Restore plc, WeAre20:20 and Impellam Group.

In September 2007, Michael Ashcroft agreed to the sale of AIM listed cleaning services supplier OneSource.

Michael Ashcroft owns a Dassault Falcon 7X, registration VP-BZE, via his Bermudian registered company, Flying Lion.

Michael Ashcroft owns two 150-foot yachts, both registered in Belize:.

Michael Ashcroft's tenure was marked by a number of controversies: he was seen to pay little UK income tax because of his domicile in Belize, and he was at the centre of a debate about openness and accountability of political funding.

Significant donations made to the Conservative Party by Bearwood Corporate Services, a company controlled by Michael Ashcroft, have come under scrutiny.

On 1 March 2010, Michael Ashcroft said that he was not domiciled in the UK for tax purposes.

In September 2010, Michael Ashcroft announced he would be stepping down as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.

Michael Ashcroft's resignation came as he published Minority Verdict, his critical analysis of why the Conservative Party failed to gain an overall majority in the general election; leading to the Conservatives forming the Coalition government with the Liberal Democrats.

Michael Ashcroft became the largest donor to the Conservative's candidate for the 2021 London mayoral election.

On 31 March 2000, Michael Ashcroft was appointed as a life peer, and the title Baron Michael Ashcroft, of Chichester in the County of West Sussex was gazetted on 20 October 2000, the last creation of the millennium.

Michael Ashcroft was nominated by Conservative party leader William Hague on the condition that he became a UK resident, although at the beginning of 2010 he announced his "non-domiciled" tax status.

Michael Ashcroft had announced that he intended to take the title "Baron Michael Ashcroft of Belize", a suggestion that infuriated his political opponents.

Michael Ashcroft later said this had been a joke, and his title was created as simply "Baron Ashcroft".

Michael Ashcroft allegedly gave the People's United Party in Belize $1m when it was in opposition.

Michael Ashcroft made donations of $250,000 to the party on 28 July 2010 and in September 2013.

Lord Michael Ashcroft has been a major independent public pollster of British political opinion.

In 2013, Michael Ashcroft stated that he has given tens of millions of pounds to good causes over the years.

On 12 October 2009, Michael Ashcroft pledged NZ$50,000 for the safe return of two-year-old toddler Aisling Symes.

Michael Ashcroft was the Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University from November 2001 to January 2021.

Lord Michael Ashcroft Building in Chelmsford was inaugurated in 2003 and Lord Michael Ashcroft Building in Cambridge was opened in 2011.

Michael Ashcroft is the sponsor of Ashcroft Technology Academy in Wandsworth, a state secondary school within the English academy programme.

Michael Ashcroft became the main backer, along with Stephan Shakespeare of Flooved, an education technology startup.

Michael Ashcroft has provided a copy of Britain's Treasure Islands to every secondary school in the UK and its overseas territories.

Michael Ashcroft is an Ambassador for the education and veterans charity SkillForce which, under Chief Executive Ben Slade devised and developed the Prince William Award.

Michael Ashcroft funded the 2022 restoration of Jacob's Ladder.

Michael Ashcroft is a whale spotter, through which interest he has financially supported various environmental groups and campaigns.

Michael Ashcroft financially supported the Environmental Investigation Agency, who persuaded him to back a television campaign in six Caribbean countries, aimed at coaxing them to withdraw their support for whaling.

Michael Ashcroft has supported military causes; in September 2011 he hosted a reception at the House of Lords for the launch of the Felix Fund, the charity for bomb disposal experts and their families.

Michael Ashcroft pledged to donate all of the author's royalties from his book Special Forces Heroes to the Help for Heroes charity, and from his book George Cross Heroes to the Victoria Cross and George Cross Association.

Michael Ashcroft collects Victoria Crosses, which are awarded for valour and devotion to duty to members of various armed forces.

Michael Ashcroft's collection is by far the largest in the world spanning 128 years from acts of valour at the start of the Crimean War in 1854 to an act of courage during the Falklands War in 1982.

Michael Ashcroft wrote Victoria Cross Heroes to mark the 150th anniversary of the Victoria Cross.

Michael Ashcroft has been described as a "tax exile", and for a number of years lived in the UK enjoying the controversial non-domiciled tax status.

At the time of his ennoblement the Cabinet Office said that Michael Ashcroft would be taking up permanent residence in the UK for tax purposes, an undertaking described in the newspapers as a "pledge" and a "gentleman's agreement", but he did not in fact claim to do so until a decade later, when a change in the law would have required him to quit the Lords, had he not done so.

In 2017 it was revealed following the Paradise Papers leak of offshore investment documents that Lord Michael Ashcroft remained domiciled in Belize despite having claimed to have given up his non-dom tax status in 2010.

The documents showed that between 2000 and 2010, Michael Ashcroft received payments of around 150 million from an offshore trust in Bermuda, which as a non-dom he did not have to pay taxes on.

In 1999, Michael Ashcroft was first nominated by Conservative Party leader and friend William Hague for the Lords.

Michael Ashcroft later recounted his own side of the story in his book Dirty Politics, Dirty Times.

In 2003, Michael Ashcroft was criticised by a High Court judge, Mr Justice Peter Smith, in Rock Ltd v RCO Plc.

In 2012, BBC's Panorama programme alleged that Lord Michael Ashcroft continued to control the Caribbean construction company Johnston International after its sale in 1999 until it went bankrupt in 2010, and that he concealed his continuing control.

Michael Ashcroft denied he owned Johnston after 1999, though he avoided answering questions about whether he continued to "control" it.

Michael Ashcroft's book Call Me Dave: The Unauthorised Biography of David Cameron, published on 5 October 2015, was criticised by Conservative Party sources for containing content which they classified as untrue.

Michael Ashcroft was chancellor for 20 years and made significant contributions to the university.

Michael Ashcroft was sworn of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 2012, entitling him to use the post-nominal letters "PC" for life.