Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC has had his latest “hero of the month” article published in Britain at War, the country’s best-selling military history monthly magazine.

The May issue of magazine has four pages on the life and career of Sergeant George Monk, who was awarded the Military Medal (MM) for gallantry during the post Second World War Malayan Campaign and for what his official citation described as “a brilliant little action”.

George Monk, who was born in June 1922, enlisted into the Suffolk Regiment in October 1941. During the Second World War, he served both at home and in North West Europe with his regiment and the Royal Artillery, the Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire Regiment and the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. (more…)

Article in Mail on Sunday – 05 May 2019

• Big cat Simba was dramatically rescued from the ranch where he was being held
• The lion’s life had been saved by undercover investigators led by Lord Ashcroft
• He was saved just hours before another hunter was due to arrive to kill him

With his glorious golden mane, magnificent Simba cautiously surveys his new kingdom as he stalks through dense bushes. (more…)

Lord Ashcroft, the former Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party, has made a series of major revelations about the captive-bred lion industry in South Africa.

In the light of his exclusive disclosures, Lord Ashcroft called on the South African Government to halt the “horrific and abusive” activity of “lion farming” and urged the UK Government to bring in new import laws to discourage the practice. (more…)

My presentation to the International Democrat Union executive meeting in Santiago, Chile, looking at what my polling shows about the prospects for the 2020 US Presidential election.

Since the midterm elections in November I have conducted further research looking at the state of play at the midway point in Donald Trump’s term – or should that be his first term? This is presented in detail in my latest book, Half-Time!, which also brings together more than two years of my work on the Ashcroft in America project. The aim is to work out where the American public is and where is seems to be heading as the battle lines are drawn for the 2020 election. I will set out some of the main points here, but do take the chance to help a struggling author and get hold of a copy either from Amazon or direct from Biteback Publishing.

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Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC has had his latest “hero of the month” article published in Britain at War, the country’s best-selling military history monthly magazine.

The April issue of magazine has four pages on the life and career of Company Sergeant Major Peter Harold Wright VC.

Farmer’s son Wright, who was born in Mettingham, Suffolk, initially planned a career in the police force but he changed his mind and enlisted in the Coldstream Guards in October 1936, later joining the 3^rd Battalion. He served in Egypt and Palestine as a lance corporal from 1937-9. (more…)

Divided though we are, one thing everyone in the country seems to agree on is that they are sick to the back teeth of our political class. Individual politicians still sometimes inspire support or admiration – Theresa May not least among them, it should be said. But depending on your point of view, politicians have either failed to deliver on a clear and unambiguous promise to the voters, or spent two years indulging their own obsessions at the expense of things that really matter, or some combination of the two. Whatever the outcome of the current debacle, one casualty could be the parties as we know them today, with The Independent Group – in its new guise as Change UK – in the vanguard of a new political order.

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This article first appeared in the Mail on Sunday on 31 March 2019.

Ten years ago, when I was responsible for the Tories’ private polling as the party’s Deputy Chairman, we often asked voters to choose from a selection of words and pictures those which they most associated with the main parties. The Conservative selection would invariably include a picture of an aristocratic family standing outside an enormous house, and other indications that the party was for the rich and out of touch with ordinary people. Labour’s often featured a fat man lazing on a sofa, usually signifying those who lived this way rather than going to work.

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Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC has given his backing to today’s launch of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission’s (CWGC’s) “Voices of Liberation” project to mark the 75^th anniversary of key events in the Second World War.

As part of the new project, Lord Ashcroft and others were interviewed about their thoughts and experiences on liberation in relation to 1944 and other significant Second World War events. These interviews will form part of an important archive that the CWGC will keep and maintain. (more…)

Following the week’s parliamentary drama, here is a reminder of how – and crucially, why – the UK voted in the EU referendum in June 2016.

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24 June 2016

The UK has voted to leave the European Union. On referendum day I surveyed 12,369 people after they had voted to help explain the result – who voted for which outcome, and what lay behind their decision.

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Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC has had his latest “hero of the month” article published in Britain at War, the country’s best-selling military history monthly magazine.

The March issue of magazine has four pages on the life of Captain Richard Annand, who was affectionately known as the “wheelbarrow VC’ for his bravery during the Second World War.

Annand was born in Westoe, South Shields, Co Durham, in November 1914. His father, Wallace, was killed at Gallipoli when Richard was just seven months old and an uncle became his guardian.

He was awarded the Army’s first VC of the 1939-45 war for his gallantry defending the River Dyle in Belgium against advancing German soldiers on May 15/16 1940. (more…)