UN Mission says Ashcroft not planning to resign

It was big news in the opposition newspaper…but the subject of the article says it’s not true. Today’s Guardian, the voice of the United Democratic Party, reported in two separate stories that Belize’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Michael Ashcroft, will by month’s end resign his post. According to the Guardian, the departure was part of a deal under which the billionaire, who holds both British and Belizean citizenship, will also relocate from the US to the U.K. and begin paying British income taxes. In return, he would be nominated for a seat in the House of Lords. News Five today contacted The Belize Mission to the United Nations in New York and we were told that the story had “no basis in fact”. According to a Mission spokesman Ashcroft was hard at work at his UN post and just last night had met with US Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Holbrooke. Ashcroft, who serves as Treasurer of and is a major contributor to Britain’s Conservative Party, last year came under fire from opponents in politics and the press. One of the criticisms levied against him was that the dual roles of Belize’s Ambassador and the British opposition’s Treasurer represented a conflict of interest.