Critics have been 'caught pants down': Lord Paul

Pilloried by the Opposition Conservative Party and the media supporting it, Lord Swraj Paul has hit back at his critics saying that "they have been caught with their pants down."

The 78-year-old NRI industrialist announced earlier this week that he had been cleared by the police of allegations that he had wrongly claimed Parliamentary expenses and that he had decided to give up his non-domicile status, which means that he will have to pay taxes in this country on his overseas expenses also.

As left-wing political weekly New Statesman put it, Paul had in recent weeks become the focus of intense political and media scrutiny and dragged into the row over tax status of Conservative Party's Deputy Chairman Lord Michael Ashcroft, who is alleged to have avoided paying millions in tax in recent years by declaring himself to be a non-domicile.

Conservatives and their "apologists in the press" as the weekly put it had been asking why there should be focus on Ashcroft's non-domicile status when Paul had a similar status.

By deciding that he was giving it up he appears to have taken the wind out the sails of his critics.

Asked by the New Statesman how much additional tax he would have to pay by ending his non-domicile status, Paul told the magazine: 'Definitely not millions of pounds, or hundreds of thousands.'

One source suggests his tax bill might be as low as 10,000 pounds, the weekly said, adding the Liberal Democrats have alleged that Ashcroft has avoided paying 127 million pounds in tax over the past decade.

When asked if he had any aspiration to join a future Labour government after the next elections due before middle of June, Paul, who is regarded as a friend of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, replied: "I have no interest in being a minister."

"I'm too old for it anyway."