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Conservative donor and deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft has admitted he does not pay UK tax on earnings outside Britain. Commentators look at what this means for the Tory party.

the story comes down to semantics:

"So the question of whether Ashcroft has complied with his 2000 commitment comes down to whether you believe that "permanent residence" can be reasonably taken to be the same as "long term residence" (in this case referring to non-domiciled tax status)."

The David Cameron's tough treatment of MPs expenses and asks why he was so gentle with Lord Ashcroft:

"The rough justice Mr Cameron meted out to Tory troops who exploited their expenses without actually breaking the rules stands in contrast to his prolonged indulgence of Lord Ashcroft's desire to keep his dealings private. Perhaps he is instinctively more forgiving about avoiding tax, which some right-wingers always regard as an indecent affront, than the free use of public funds. Or perhaps Lord Ashcroft - whose carefully targeted donations are currently helping Conservatives campaigns in crucial marginal seats to defy faltering national performance - has been treated especially gently."

The , commending Mr Cameron's handling of the affair:

"It is to Mr Cameron's credit that he has forced this issue, planning legislation to require both peers and MPs to pay full tax. In this, the Conservative leader has been both pragmatic and principled. And yet, even now, Lord Ashcroft keeps the same smirking tone."

Labour MP if this revelation will lead to a rethink of political financing of democratic activity:

"Giant scandals rocked French, German and Italian politics over the last quarter century and reforms were enacted to bring in state funding. Britain's eternal self-satisfied smugness that we are squeaky clean in terms of the public interface between parties, government and external sources of finance surely now needs re-examination in the light of Ashcroft."

The president of the polling organisation YouGov that Lord Ashcroft's funding will have an effect in marginal seats but not on the national political outlook:

"The ground war is where you contact your supporters, you find out where they are. You put a lot of effort street by street, house by house to find out where your supporters are and making sure they go out to vote on the day... I don't think money makes much difference in the big politics of the election but it can make a difference to the mobilisation on the ground in the key seats, money does count there."

The the Labour reaction "synthetic outrage":

"Lord Ashcroft was of value to Labour's propaganda machine only when there was doubt about his tax position. Now that we know he has precisely the same non-dom status as prominent Labour donors such as Sir Ronald Cohen, Lord Paul and Lakshmi Mittal, it is going to be difficult for Labour to make any serious mischief on this issue - which rather reinforces the point that he should have come clean much sooner."

Political blogger accusations against the Tories for taking money from non-doms hypocrisy:

"Since 2001 Ashcroft has given £5,160,915 to the Tories and Labour's troika of of non-dom donors, Mittal, Cohen and Paul have given £6,734,250."

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