No student of Conservative Party regicides will be surprised by gossip that, as the doomspiralling party’s conference gets underway, plans are in place for its long-time chronicler of Tory leaders Lord Michael Ashcroft to write a tell-all biography of Robert Jenrick.
Perhaps the story of Bobby J will restore fortunes at Ashcroft’s Political Holdings Limited, the umbrella firm behind his extensive political and media interests, which include Biteback Publishing, Total Politics and the Tory bible Conservative Home. Overdue accounts published on September 18 showed the company with £8.1 million in ongoing losses as of March this year.
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The ongoing trading deficit included a £2.5 million loss after tax for the 2024 financial year, itself run up on £15.5 million in turnover. A ‘going concern’ note added to the accounts states that the ongoing deficit is sustained by its “shareholder and creditors for at least one year”.
Book publishing is shown as contributing just £630,000 to the turnover total – not a bad result considering that two key tomes published by Biteback last year were Blue Ambition, a biography of the popular and personable Kemi Badenoch, and Red Queen, which tipped Angela Rayner for the top. Both were written by Ashcroft himself – just two of the 28 tomes penned by the busy peer that are available on Biteback’s website.
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