On the BBC this Sunday morning, Andrew Marr asked William Hague about Lord Ashcroft’s refusal to say if he’s paying his income tax in the UK, despite pouring money into the Tory election campaign and sitting in the House of Lords, making our laws.

Lord Ashcroft has donated millions of pounds to Tory campaigns and is the Vice Chair of the Conservative party. He was given a peerage some years ago on the promise that he would cease dodging British taxes by living as a non-domicile in the haven of Belize. Ever since, he has failed to demonstrate that he kept this promise, saying it’s none of our business what tax he pays where. He is typical of the kind of super-rich individual who believes he should run this country without paying his dues.

He is not the only one involved. The Conservative environmental policy maker and Parliamentary Candidate, Zak Goldsmith is said to have escaped around £6 million in taxes by protecting his inherited wealth offshore. He, too has donated heavily to the party’s marginal campaigns.

Although people living in foreign countries are not allowed to fund UK political parties, there is a loophole which allows a British based company with foreign ownership to donate. Lord Ashcroft’s money filters through to promote the Tory message in marginal seats via his company, Stargate Holdings in Belize and a British company Stargate bought shares in, called Bearwood Holdings.

A number of businessmen were “outed” three years ago for filtering huge sums to the Conservatives through a front company called the Midlands industrial Council, which allows them to conceal just how much money they’ve each given to swing voters towards the Tories in marginal seats.

Wyre Forest is a marginal seat but so far, the local Tories have not answered questions as to whether any of their glossy campaign for Mark Garnier is funded by money ex-patriot millionaires like Ashcroft and Goldsmith should rightly have paid to the tax man. The Labour Party also has its big foreign supporters, notably the Indian steel billionaire, Lakshmi Mittal. However, it’s doubtful that any of that money reaches Nigel Knowles in Wyre Forest as the local Labour Party earns too little to publish accounts.

Indeed, as the funds of Wyre Forest Conservatives are so much higher than anyone else’s, theirs are the only local branch party figures that have to be published by the Electoral Commission. Health Concern has to publish its meagre accounts because it constitutes a national party. They amount to about one tenth of the Tories. None of the other Wyre Forest parties publish figures, so they must have so little to fight with, they are below the Electoral Commission’s £25,000 threshold. That includes my own party, the Liberal Democrats. This hardly constitutes a fair fight, does it?

In his interview, Andrew Marr suggested to William Hague that the Tories had been vague and evasive about whether Ashcroft paid taxes here. Hague responded in his famous blunt manner that he would be neither vague nor evasive and then proceeded not to answer the question. Instead, he accused Labour of doing the same thing.

He pointed out that David Cameron had promised that Ashcroft and other foreign-based super-rich donors would have to establish UK residency and pay UK taxes as soon as the election was over. How convenient! Apparently, this moral stance doesn’t kick in until the Conservatives have spent Ashcroft's and Goldsmith’s millions attempting to buy your vote with airbrushed advertising campaigns and full-colour leaflets.

If we are to get any semblance of democracy back in British politics we have to stop this game playing. No party or person is above reproach but the Conservatives defence of the indefencible to suit their ambition for power is an insult to the British people.

While people in Wyre Forest regularly complain to me about benefit cheats (and rightly so), it would be good to remember that an estimated £45 billion of taxes is evaded by the richest members of our society every year. I have no problem with people becoming wealthy on the back of hard work but we all invest in their success and they should pay their fair share. If not, they should have no say over our democracy. I hope Wyre Forest’s voters will not be so easily bought.

Neville Farmer Liberal Democrat Parliamentary Candidate