Lord Ashcroft withdraws funding from Tories

Lord Ashcroft has withdrawn his funding for the Tories over Cameron's obsession with "fringe issues" such as gay marriage.  He says that he has given enough money to the Tories and that they're not going to win the next election.

Another Tory donor says that Ashcroft thinks Cameron is too much of a liberal and out of touch.  The Tories say that it isn't really a problem because he hasn't donated to them since before the last election.  He donated £4m to them in the 3 years up to the last election and is their biggest donor, giving them around £10m in total.

Ashcroft will continue commissioning opinion polls and supporting individual Tory MPs and candidates he likes.