For the past two days, we've been telling you about the Panorama
investigative series in the United Kingdom which exposes Lord Michael
Ashcroft's connection to Johnston International, a company he claimed to
have sold in 1999.
Well it's bringing pressure on Ashcroft in the UK. Earlier today in the
British House of Commons, which is like our House Of Representatives,
representative, Thomas Docherty, asked Prime Minister David Cameron, quote:
"It is now clear that the single biggest funder of the Prime Minister's
party got his peerage on false pretenses. Can the Prime Minister guarantee
that Lord Ashcroft has now told the whole truth about his connections with
the building company Johnson International?"
And in the British Courts, an attorney defending the UK's Independent
Newspaper against a suit by Ashcroft told a panel of judges about "a
culture of political corruption" in the Turks and Caicos.
And while all that seethes at the official level, today Ashcroft was in
London with his good friend Godfrey Smith launching the George Price
Biography in that country.
It is an event sponsored by The Institute for the Study of the Americas and
the Institute of Commonwealth Studies with main speaker, Godfrey Smith and
Guest Speaker Lord Michael Ashcroft.
Here's a feature Smith sent to us over the internet where Ashcroft speaks
about his knowledge of George Price:
Untitled from 7News Belize on Vimeo.
An interesting historical footnote is that the entire BTL entanglement
first started unfolding in 1993 - just days before the June election when
Price, as then Minister of Finance, signed a letter designating an Ashcroft
company and its subsidiaries as permitted persons, able to hold more than
25% of the company's shareholdings.
That designation was until then reserved for the Government.
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