GORDON Prentice might have secured a footnote in history with yesterday’s instruction by the Information Commissioner.

He told the Cabinet Office to reveal just what Lord Ashcroft agreed when about to become domiciled in the UK for tax purposes when he was made a life peer in 2000.

Since then the noble Lord, deputy chairman of the Conservatives and their biggest funder, has refused to say where he lives and pays his taxes.

It’s a victory for Pendle’s MP who has been trying to get this ruling for the past three years. It’s a victory for freedom of information.

And it may be useful to all the people who are worried about the way the Conservatives are throwing shed-loads of money into marginal seats, including Mr Prentice and my Liberal Democrat colleague Matthew Oakeshott (Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay).

Lord Ashcroft is the most notorious of the list of new peers that was announced, possibly appropriately in his case, on April 1 2000. (I should declare some kind of interest as I was one of the eight Liberal Democrats on that list!) He not only gives the Tories lots of brass but he is in charge of their marginal seats unit in their London headquarters. It’s no secret that one of the seats he is inundating with leaflets, mailings and the rest is Pendle.

But Lord Ashcroft is not very active in parliament.

According to the excellent They Work for You website (www.theyworkforyou.com) he did not speak once last year, and while he asked 30 written questions (an easy thing to do if you have staff to table them for you) he only voted in 16 per cent of divisions.

He did turn up to listen to part of the committee stage of the Political Parties and Elections Bill when Lord Campbell-Savours was challenging his activities (and waving copies of Pendle Conservative leaflets at us all!) But he sat on the public benches (against the rules!) and said nothing.

In his judgement, the Information Commissioner criticised ‘statements by leading politicians’ – clearly aimed at David Cameron and company – as being ‘evasive and obfuscatory’.

I think that means avoiding telling the facts, and muddying the waters.

But it’s probably too late to make any difference for the coming election.