He is a prolific political publisher, whose books and websites have caused toe-curling embarrassment for prime ministers – and now for one political spouse. But for Michael Ashcroft, the billionaire businessman and Tory donor, his books on the major political players are all about influence.
Before the revelations this week from a forthcoming book, First Lady, about Carrie Johnson, Ashcroft’s most famous revelation was David Cameron’s “pig-gate” scandal in his book Call Me Dave. That was widely accused of being a personal hatchet job after his relationship with the then-prime minister deteriorated.
Since then, Ashcroft has published exposés on the UK’s faltering defence and health service, as well as a number of political biographies. Those are not always intended as takedowns – he published warm biographies of Rishi Sunak and Jacob Rees-Mogg when their political careers were in the ascendancy.
His quest for political influence is not limited to books: he has a controlling stake in the influential ConservativeHome website and is the largest shareholder in Dods, a parliamentary website that publishes PoliticsHome and the House magazine and subscription services read widely in Westminster and Whitehall.
There is certainly some significant editorial freedom; on Monday ConHome’s editor Paul Goodman publicly questioned whether Carrie Johnson was fair game. “Whether the charge is true or not, it deflects from the main point. Which is that the prime minister himself, not his spouse, bears responsibility for his decisions,” he wrote.
First Lady’s publication is understood to have been brought forward after Johnson’s premiership was imperilled by partygate. The book makes a number of significant – and disputed – allegations, including that Carrie Johnson messaged staff from the prime minister’s phone, interfered in significant political decisions and arranged to have staff members hired or dismissed, depending on who was in favour.
Ashcroft does not publish to make money; his net worth is an estimated $2.1bn, the bulk of which comes from the sale of home security company ADT. He is a citizen of Belize, where he is a major investor.
“These books and websites are not about making money, it’s about being a player, being part of the political conversation and making headlines,” one former associate said. “He doesn’t micromanage, but he knows the books need a spicy anecdote to get serialisations.”
Ashcroft employs writers and researchers for his books, usually a lead author with a small team. They are a select, trusted few, including the former Sunday Times political editor Isabel Oakeshott and the ex-Mail on Sunday journalist Miles Goslett.
Those who have worked with Ashcroft say he is as keen to spot, cultivate and endorse upcoming talent as he is to turn the spotlight on those who have slighted him. Ashcroft has been open about his “beef” with Cameron, despite a previous closeness, after Cameron did not offer him a significant government job in 2010.
Cameron blamed the Liberal Democrats, who were in coalition government, and offered Ashcroft a junior Foreign Office post. “It would have been better had Cameron offered me nothing at all,” Ashcroft wrote. “After ploughing some £8m into the party, I regarded this as a declinable offer.”
Craig Oliver, Cameron’s spin doctor, said that Ashcroft’s methods needed to be scrutinised. He wrote in the Spectator that the claims made by Ashcroft and his co-author Isabel Oakeshott about Cameron’s alleged fellatio with a pig head had no verifiable sourcing but blew up into a big story regardless.
“The claim was deeply cynical, because those behind it knew that even though there was no proof, it would be toxic anyway,” he wrote. “Any attempt to say the story wasn’t true would result in ‘PM denies pig sex claim’ headlines, leading some to believe there is no smoke without fire. In the end, all I could advise was that we say nothing, starving the story of any extra energy.”
Oliver said he detected something similar in one of the more explosive claims in the book about Carrie Johnson, that she used the prime minister’s phone to give directions to staffers.
“The anonymous source is merely guessing about what had gone on, with no solid evidence to back up their assertion,” he wrote. “I have no idea if the story is true or not – but readers deserve higher standards of proof than this for it to be simply thrown into the public domain.”
One source who knows Cameron said he had made peace with the book. He is known to have at least two copies on his bookshelves at his family home.
Ashcroft has rarely made forays into senior Labour figures, but in August last year he published Red Knight, an unauthorised biography of Keir Starmer. It was in this book where the seeds of Johnson’s attack against Starmer for allegedly not prosecuting Jimmy Savile were planted in many Tories’ minds, though it makes clear Starmer was not personally involved in the decision.
In fact, the book argues Starmer should be held responsible for Operation Midland, the police investigation of false accusations of sexual abuse levelled at several public figures.
Ashcroft claims that in the wake of the failure to prosecute the paedophile Jimmy Savile, which happened while Starmer was director of public prosecutions – though it did not involve him personally – he embraced an “ideology” that said victims’ testimony should be believed, which became widely influential.
Ashcroft seeks to draw a line from that to the credibility police lent the alleged victim, “Nick”, who was subsequently convicted of perverting the course of justice. Ashcroft claims the case continues to “haunt” Starmer, as much as it does the Met.
But there was little that troubled Starmer’s team. One team member said they had adopted a rigid non-cooperation policy, which Ashcroft acknowledges in the book, and its authors had found it very difficult to find disaffected or wronged former associates of Starmer – even among his ex-girlfriends. Very few of Starmer’s friends, colleagues, associates or teachers were prepared to be interviewed at all.
For Carrie Johnson, there is no shortage of anonymous, aggrieved former colleagues, Downing Street staffers, Tory aides and ex-friends.
The motivation for Ashcroft to dig into the private life and influence of the prime minister’s wife is less transparent than his feud with Cameron. Goodman speculated it was about maintaining political intrigue and relevance: “Our proprietor likes to make news and get talked about.”
The charge against Ashcroft from Johnson’s supporters is that she is not an elected politician, with no ability to publicly defend herself. One Tory friend called the book a “witch-hunt” and said there was a consensus that in publishing the book, Ashcroft had gone “a step too far”.
The friend pointed to Ashcroft’s ownership of Dods, which produces an annual women in leadership event, calling it “duplicitous” that “Ashcroft is making money out of a conference to help women and at the same time publishing a book which is deeply misogynistic and sexist.”
But Ashcroft insists that scrutiny of Johnson is in the public interest. “The evidence I have gathered suggests his wife’s behaviour is preventing him from leading Britain as effectively as the voters deserve,” he wrote.
