“Cameron’s strategy appears to be: put up the shutters, then rubbish the book on the basis that we have had no access”, Lord Ashcroft wrote on his website.
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The Prime Minister said at the time he had only known about it for a month.
The Call Me Dave biography is proving embarrassing for Mr Cameron, with lurid claims about a weird Oxford initiation ceremony involving a dead pig and condemnation from military chiefs for his response to crises in Syria and Libya.
Downing Street has declined to comment on any of the allegations made in Lord Ashcroft’s book.
A small plurality of participants who believed the claims said they felt they did not matter (36 per cent) while 30 per cent told the pollster the allegations were important.
David Cameron was probably hoping the Internet had moved on from guffawing over salacious tales about his alleged university activities.
“It makes me think that, rather like (Tony) Blair, he was determined to change the regime”.
Writing in the newspaper, Ashcroft said he was disappointed that Cameron only offered him a “declinable” junior post after he formed a coalition government with the Liberal Democrats in 2010.
However, Mr Cameron finally broke his silence over the sensational allegations during a Tory fundraising dinner at the exclusive Clarton Club on Monday night.
The peer alleges that Mr Cameron knew about his non-domiciled in 2009, stating that Mr Cameron was “fully aware of my status as a so-called non dom”.
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Asked if Mr Cameron had been damaged by the revelations, Chancellor George Osborne told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think the British people had their verdict on David Cameron’s premiership just a couple of months ago at the General Election and they re-elected him because he is a strong leader who has led this country out of economic turmoil to economic success”.
