In response to this morning's front page story in The Sunday Times, Zac Goldsmith has sent ConservativeHome this statement:
What’s going on at the Sunday Times?
The Sunday Times has run an amazing article on its front page today, titled: “Tories covered up donations from Zac Goldsmith” and then “Conservatives in cash cover-up”.
The paper has created a damaging headline, and then uses its lengthy article to explain why the headline is totally unjustified, and why the story is a non-story. The Times already knows very well that there has been no cover up, no attempt at a cover up, and no possible reason for a cover up.
The article says that donations were made to the Conservative Party by a company called Unicorn Administration on behalf of some of its clients. That’s true. It says that the cheques had the names of the people for whom the donations were being written clearly on the top. It even states that “There is no suggestion that any of the donors or Unicorn acted improperly.”
So the paper accepts that there was no attempt made by me or any other donor to ‘hide behind’ a company.
Where then is the story that justifies this screaming front-page headline? The only issue is that the Conservative Party failed to register the donations under the name of Unicorn’s clients. But given that all of the clients in question are known Conservative Party donors, what possible reason would the Party have for wanting to ‘cover-up’ their identity?
At worst, it can only have been a minor administrative error by the Conservative Party compliance department. Perhaps the Times and its friends in the Lib Dem Attack Unit can come up with a motive? I can’t.