Revenge? Lord Ashcroft could lose his job over Cameron’s pig & drug allegations

Lord Ashcroft, author of the unauthorized David Cameron biography, could be dismissed as a government aide after criticizing the Prime Minister’s “ineptitude” in failing to carry out a coherent foreign policy on Libya and Syria.

The peer has been accused of using the book as “revenge” against Cameron after he failed to secure a top job in government following the 2010 general election.

‘Call me Dave’, Ashcroft’s biography which is being serialized by the Daily Mail, further exposed allegations of the PM’s decadent behavior during his undergraduate studies at Oxford University.

Sources suggested on Monday that Ashcroft’s position as Cameron’s “special representative for veterans’ transition” would not be reviewed.

The second installment of the book, released on Tuesday, included damning reports of Cameron’s military knowledge and leadership.

General Sir David Richards said he was forced to tell Cameron that “being in the Combined Cadet Force at Eton” did not mean he was able to rule on military tactics, the book reveals.

Monday’s extract alleged Cameron had “put a private part of his anatomy” into a dead pig’s mouth. It further alleged that friends of David and his wife Samantha had taken cocaine around their dinner table, and that the Prime Minister had been partial to smoking cannabis.

However, the peer and his co-author Isabel Oakeshott have come under scrutiny after it emerged they had not been able to verify the pig’s head allegation.

“We couldn’t get to the bottom of that source’s allegation, so we merely reported the account that the source gave us,” Oakeshott told Channel 4 News.

She added the pig story was only a few paragraphs long and that the authors “don’t say whether we think it’s true.”

The book notes the pair were informed of a photograph featuring the PM and the animal, but that they could not trace its origins. Number 10 declined to make an official comment on the matter.

Oakeshott also refuted claims the book was a “revenge job.” She told the BBC that Ashcroft could have chosen to publish in the run up to the general election, but chose not to.

Ashcroft was reported to have been promised a ministerial job by Cameron before the 2010 election, but that former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg had rejected the appointment during his term as deputy PM.

The allegations were described by one source close to Cameron as salacious. 

“It’s salacious gossip that doesn’t appear to be being taken seriously in any way. It’s lurid nonsense,” said one friend.

Another suggested it was indeed a revenge job.

“This is a man who didn’t get the job he wanted. Now he just looks like a rich guy who didn’t get his way and is deeply unhappy about it.”