Editco.net

The Tories have been slipping in the polls and the final straw may be the revelation that William Hague, currently shadow foreign secretary and de facto deputy leader, was stitched up like a kipper when, in his time as Tory leader, Tory treasurer Michael Ashcroft persuaded him that he was going to pay his UK taxes in return for a seat in the Lords.

Ashcroft, whose millions have driven the Tory campaign in marginal seats over the last several years, appears to have proceeded to strike his own deal with the Parliamentary authorities - and avoided millions in income tax as his main residence remained Belize. Without telling Hague or indeed current Tory leader David Cameron.

Reasonable observers of this shady farrago (the voters) may well conclude that the Tory leaders, past and present, were remarkably incurious about their rich and generous treasurer and his attachment for 'living' on a volcanic lump in the Caribbean.

Or that they were so grateful for his money, which is deemed by many observers to be crucial to the Tories picking up the key marginals they need to win the election, that they hoped it would, somehow, be alright on the night.

Now it emerges that Ashcroft asked the opinion pollsters he employed to invoice him in Belize, thereby avoiding VAT.

The Tories are trying to say this polling was Ashcroft's private affair, which is clearly complete cobblers and will only land them further in the mire.

The voters are already suspicious of Cameron's Old Etonian clique and worried about shadow chancellor George Osborne's threat to slash public services to pay off the deficit.

Yorkshireman Hague, who definitely didn't go to Eton, is one of the few top Tories who resonates with the proverbial man on a Clapham omnibus.

If he's convicted in the good old court of public opinion of turning a blind eye to the doings of tax and VAT dodging Ashcroft then Cameron (who's also known about Ashcroft's dodgy tax staus for years) can forget all about winning a majority in May.