David Cameron and Lord Ashcroft shared a table at a lavish fundraising banquet just weeks before the secretive peer admitted he dodges tax, the Mirror can reveal.
Mr Cameron's cosy evening with the Tories' biggest donor at the dinner in aid of election campaign coffers is a huge embarrassment as the leader desperately tries to distance himself from the "Lord Cashcroft" scandal.
Tories blame the fiasco on their former leader William Hague, who proposed the billionaire's peerage.
But Labour MP John Mann said: "David Cameron would rather take the money and ask no questions, just like William Hague did before him."
The £350-a-head banquet and auction will have added a small fortune to the Tory election war chest after bankers, City fat cats and aristocrats packed 100 tables, each seating 10 guests, at London's Battersea Park venue on February 1.
A portrait of Mr Cameron by Jonathan Yeo, son of Tory grandee Tim, sold for £200,000 alone - and a bust of ex-Tory PM Maggie Thatcher fetched £100,000. A night at Stringfellows lap-dancing club went for £5,000.
Tory aides yesterday said Lord Ashcroft, who has given them more than £5million, would be stepping down as deputy party chairman after the election following accusations he misled the Queen about his tax status when he accepted a peerage 10 years ago.
He promised to be a permanent UK resident, and pay full taxes here, but he admitted last week his status was "non-dom", meaning not domiciled in the UK.