Lord Ashcroft, who was criticised for his incendiary unofficial biography of David Cameron, has spent the past 18 days in intensive care with liver and kidney failure.
The Tory peer, 69, who co-wrote the book with the journalist Isabel Oakeshott, was taken ill with septic shock. Friends said it had been life-threatening, but that he was out of danger now.
The news emerged when he was unable to attend the launch yesterday of Call Me Dave, which contained lurid accusations about Mr Cameron’s behaviour as an undergraduate at Oxford. One allegation — denied by the Prime Minister — was that Mr Cameron took part in a student initiation involving a dead pig.
Lord Ashcroft was treated in hospital in the United States and is now recovering in Belize, where he has extensive business interests.
A video played at the launch described the effects of his illness, and a message from Lord Ashcroft was read to the audience by Iain Dale, his publisher. “I am well aware that I should have been standing shoulder to shoulder [with Oakeshott and Dale] but as my health deteriorated that was of course impossible,” he said.
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It went on: “To suggest that the book was primarily motivated by revenge and malice is wide of the mark. People who know me testify to the fact that while I am certainly mischievous I am not malicious.”