I SEE from the media that even Tory “deputy leader” William Hague has been kept in the dark over the millions Lord Ashcroft hasn’t paid in British tax.

He must be livid after going on record saying that Michael Ashcroft would be a British citizen and pay tens of millions of pounds in British tax after he was appointed to the peerage.

We hear the Tories are now going to distance themselves from Lord Ashcroft. Will they also distance themselves from his money and pay him back the millions he has made to them in donations?

What I’d really like to know, though, is how much of those millions are being used to produce glossy leaflets to promote Tory candidates in marginal seats in our area – in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland and Stockton South for example. It must run into tens of thousands of pounds a year.

Perhaps the local Tory candidates would come clean, issue a statement and let us know.

Eileen Johnson, Stockton