‘Lord’ Sainsbury and JK Rowling are just sycophantic lackys so don’t count. At least Ashcroft has a brain in his head…

Will he get an equal amount of negative coverage for withdrawing it from a Tory mass media that hardly even bothers to pretend to objectivity anymore – I very much doubt it.

So overall its probably a plus for him as far as the mass of voters who don’t obsessively follow politics are concerned.

Secondly making dual nationality a disqualification is bonkers even if it does rid us of ‘Lord’ Ashcroft, Zac Goldsmith and a gaggle of tax avoiding peers.

Amongst sitting MPs the only one I can immediately think of as having likely dual nationality is Gisela Stuart.

Does Gisela having (presumably) a German passport as well as a UK one make her incapable of representing the voters of Edgbaston – a fair number of whom will themselves have dual nationality and have spent less than her 35 years living and working here?

Plus much as I loathe them I can’t see how barring Sinn Feiners (who presumably all take out Irish passports on principle) would help the continuing peace process.

Next step is to identify and eliminate all MPs and peers who hold dual nationality. Just like tax-paying, it is equally unacceptable for any law-maker to owe allegience to any other country than the UK. If they hold more than one passport, there should be no place for them in the UK’s legislature.