Published in the Daily Mail on 26 December 2022.
As he returns from visiting the war-torn nation, a stirring message from senior Tory LORD ASHCROFT.
A year ago, the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa had streets full of festive lights, towering Christmas trees in its main squares and a bustling population of nearly a million people. Not for nothing was it known as ‘the pearl of the Black Sea’. (more…)
Published in the Daily Express on 07 December 2022.
Eight decades ago today, that cheery farewell ringing in their ears, the ‘Cockleshell Heroes’ clambered into their flimsy craft to begin Operation Frankton. Of the 10 men who set out, just two returned. LORD ASHCROFT exclusively retraces the path of the legendary special forces raid that inspired the iconic war film.
PADDLING in a two-man canoe off peaceful south-west France, I tried to imagine the scene 80 years earlier as specially-built canoes were silently unloaded from the hatch of a British submarine that had just surfaced off the German-occupied coast. In the evening darkness of December 7, 1942, the attack phase of Operation Frankton, the codename for perhaps the most audacious special forces operation of the Second World War, was about to get underway. (more…)
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 December issue of the magazine has four pages on the life and career of Major Colin Ogden-Smith, who lost his life while working with the French Resistance during the Second World War.
Ogden-Smith, the middle of three brothers who all served in the Armed Forces, was brought up in a prosperous area of East Croydon on the outskirts of London. He was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery before the outbreak of the war.
After some Special Forces operations, he volunteered for a clandestine group known as the Jedburghs, who were trained to parachute into Occupied France in the aftermath of the D-Day landings of June 6 1944.
In early July 1944, and then aged 33, Ogden-Smith parachuted into Brittany as part of a three-man team and they worked with the Maquis, or French Resistance, for the next three weeks.
However, on July 29 the Germans, tipped off by a collaborator, came to the farm where they were hiding and in a shoot-out Ogden-Smith was killed, along with a French Resistance fighter and the local farmer who was sheltering them.
Ogden-Smith was recommended for a gallantry award but in the end received only a Mention in Dispatches. However, he and the two Frenchmen are still remembered in a moving ceremony in Brittany that is held every other year, even eight decades on.
Lord Ashcroft’s articles for Britain at War over the past nine years have been largely based on excerpts from his seven books on gallantry: Victoria Cross Heroes, Special Forces Heroes, George Cross Heroes, Heroes of the Skies, Special Ops Heroes, Victoria Cross Heroes Volume II and Falklands War Heroes.
Lord Ashcroft is a military historian who has lectured extensively on courage and his various medal collections.
Published in the Mail on Sunday on 27 November 2022.
Ask a group of people who’ve previously voted Tory about what they felt when they heard Rishi Sunak was to become PM and the chances are someone will say “relief”.
There are plenty of doubts – about his ability to empathise with voters given his family’s wealth, his role in Boris Johnson’s downfall, and some of the Covid bailouts he unveiled as chancellor – but many welcome the return of some sanity to politics and sense to the public finances.
Speech made on 15 November 2022.
Watch the speech Lord Ashcroft made at the official launch of his latest book, In The Shadows: The extraordinary men and women of the Intelligence Corps, in London on 15 November 2022.
Watch in full:
Serialisation in The Daily Mail on 07 November 2022.
For more than a century, men and women in the British Army’s most secretive section, the Intelligence Corps, have pulled off exceptional feats across the world.
But the clandestine nature of their operations means they often don’t get the recognition they deserve. (more…)
Serialisation in The Mail On Sunday on 06 November 2022.
In an abridged extract from In The Shadows, author and historian LORD ASHCROFT chronicles the British Army’s most secretive section.
They operate in the shadows, the men and women of the British Army’s most secretive section, the Intelligence Corps.
For more than a century, they have brought their very distinctive type of courage, judgment, skill and resourcefulness to pull off exceptional feats all over the world on their country’s behalf – yet, because of the clandestine nature of their work, doing so often without the recognition they deserve. (more…)
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 November issue of the magazine has four pages on the life and career of Staff Sergeant Peter Herlick Rene Naya MM, who showed outstanding bravery during the Falklands War of 1982. (more…)
Press release – 27 October 2022.
Political Holdings – a UK-based media group specialising in current affairs, politics and government – has agreed to acquire a range of Media, Events and Training operations from Merit Group plc, the data and intelligence business, for £4.5m.
The Political Holdings group currently consists of Biteback Publishing (Britain’s leading current affairs publisher), Campaigns & Elections (the non-partisan, non-ideological go-to resource for campaign professionals in the US and Mexico) and ConservativeHome (the UK’s premier independent conservative news and analysis site). (more…)
Press release – 27 October 2022.
Merit Group plc (AIM: MRIT), the data and intelligence business, announces that it has agreed to sell the Media, Events and Training operations of its Dods Political Engagement business (together, the “MET Operations”) to Political Holdings Limited, a private company owned by Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC, for a cash consideration of £4.5 million (the “Disposal”).
In the year ending 31 March 2022, the MET Operations generated revenue of £9.3 million and an adjusted EBITDA of approximately £0.5 million, with net assets of £0.5 million as at 31 March 2022. (more…)