Ashcroft is a bigger story than the Tories might like

This could be a very profitable time for trust lawyers.

Lord Ashcroft is going to become fully resident and domiciled in the UK for tax purposes.

Can’t help thinking certain people will be tasked with minimising the financial pain involved in that decision.

Lord Ashcroft has today admitted that at the moment he’s a non-dom paying no taxation here on his non-UK earnings even as he tries to win the election for the Conservative party.

It’s the reality just about everyone thought lurked behind the wall of silence on this issue which Lord Ashcroft had effectively decreed.

It had put Tories, especially David Cameron, in the position of looking weak and cowed by the man who rejoices in his Bond villain image and who bankrolled the party through some lean years and now masterminds the marginals fight as party deputy chairman.

There were senior Tories who thought his insistence on silence over his tax status was pretty self-indulgent.

Today’s announcement also brings to an end an extended game of cat and mouse in which Lord Ashcroft was widely thought to be daring journalists to say something actionable about him as they speculated on his tax affairs.

Now we all know.

Lord Ashcroft – in common with some Labour donors, as his statement (you can see it here) makes clear – has been paying tax here only on his UK earnings.

But Lord Ashcroft’s donations tower over the Labour non-dom donations, he is a much bigger political figure, shaping the next election result, or if you believe some Labour critics, “buying it”.

So this is a bigger story than the Tories, trying to rally the party and regain a wider poll lead, might like.