£81,000 spent on four lawyers to clear Ashcroft says Huhne

11.12.00pm GMT Tue 16th Mar 2010

Commenting, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Chris Huhne said:

“It is appalling that the Electoral Commission has had to go to four different lawyers, on top of its own legal team, at a total cost of £81,000 before they got the answer that they wanted, which was to give the all clear to Lord Ashcroft’s dodgy donations.

“The Electoral Commission should now publish all the legal advice so that others can make a judgement about whether to challenge this decision in the courts.

“This smacks of the sort of legal tourism we saw in the Government over the illegal war in Iraq and at Lehman’s before it collapsed, where some lawyers wouldn’t give the opinion they wanted so they moved on until they found one who would.”