Ashcroft to quit as Tory deputy after criticising poll result

A Sunday newspaper said that the billionaire told David Cameron on Friday that he intended to resign at the next meeting of the Conservative Party board.

It also carried details of Lord Ashcroft's analysis of the party's election campaign – which he helped to finance – and its failure to produce a "thumping majority" for the Tories.

He concluded that the party failed to get its message across and voters had "little clear idea" of what they stood for or what they would do in government.

He said negative attacks on Labour were "unnecessary and counterproductive", while agreeing to the televised leaders' debates enabled the Liberal Democrats to to seize the "real change" initiative.

He pointed out that through 2008 and 2009 nearly all the published opinion polls were giving the Conservatives a double-digit lead over Labour. "Why did these figures not translate into a thumping majority? The key lies in the gap between the change people wanted and the change people thought we were offering," he said.

Lord Ashcroft added: "We did not make as much progress as we should have done in transforming the party's brand, and in reassuring former Labour voters that we had changed and were on their side.

"This in turn gave Labour's scare campaigns about Conservative plans more resonance than they would otherwise have had, and meant that, for many, voting Conservative was a much harder decision than it might have been."