This website explains who I am, what I do, what I believe, and how to contact me.
After over forty years as an entrepreneur working in both the UK and the US I am an active investor in new companies and ideas.
I support a wide range of charities, notably crime prevention and education. I am the Founder and Chairman of Crimestoppers, Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin University and the Chairman of Trustees of the Ashcroft Technology Academy, in south London. I am also a Trustee of the Cleveland Clinic in the US. Details of other charities that I support can be found elsewhere on this site.
In 2000, I was knighted and became a Member of the House of Lords (Lord Ashcroft of Chichester, KCMG).
In May 2011 I was appointed as lead advisor on a government review of military bases on Cyprus. Between December 2005 and September 2010 I was Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, with special responsibility for the target seats campaign and opinion research. I am Treasurer of the International Democrat Union.
In September 2012, I was appointed a member of the Privy Council and the was made the Government's Special Representative for Veterans' Transition, working with all departments to ensure military personnel receive the support they need when making the transition to civilian life.
Over the past two decades I have gathered over 160 Victoria Cross medals, the largest collection in the World. I am passionate in my belief that our country owes an enormous debt of gratitude to these heroes of courage. In November 2010 this collection was put on public display for the first time at the Imperial War Museum London in a purpose built gallery. The new Lord Ashcroft Gallery also exhibits VCs and George Crosses already belonging to the Imperial War Museum.
In 2009 I was made Vice-Patron of the Intelligence Corps Museum in Bedfordshire and in 2010 I became a Trustee of the Imperial War Museum Foundation.
I have written seven books. Minority Verdict gives my view of the Conservative Party’s 2010 election campaign. It follows on from Smell The Coffee, my study of public opinion in the run-up to the 2005 election, in which I called for the Conservatives to change in order to return to government. Dirty politics Dirty times, updated in 2009, is a biographical account of my successful battles against the Times newspaper and New Labour, and their ultimately unsuccessful account of their attempts to discredit me and destabilise the Conservative Party. My four books on gallantry – Victoria Cross Heroes, Special Forces Heroes, George Cross Heroes and the latest, Heroes of the Skies – tell of my lifelong interest in valour and reveal the extraordinary stories behind the medals in my collection. I was invited to talk about them at the Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2008, 2009, 2010 and will be there again in 2012.