Francis Maude and Investing in Adult Entertainment

Francis Maude has a bit of a problem. How do you square being party chair of the Conservatives with being an investor in porn DVDs? In a company producing porn DVDs that had a "condoms optional" policy for its filming?

The party boss is the £15,000-a-year non-executive chairman of Jubilee Investment Trust plc that bought into the sordid business of US porn star Jill Kelly.

Mr Maude is a leading figure in the campaign to get more women into the Tory party, and boasted only last week: "Our party is changing. We’re more family-friendly."

Confronted by the Mirror on the opening day of his party's conference, the 53-year-old Tory party chairman tried to claim his company's investment was “ancient history”. He was left speechless when we pointed out that Jubilee had actually increased its stake in the Kelly business from 5.6 per cent in 2003 to 21 per cent by last year.

Despite once owning more than 4,000 Jubilee shares and signing off its annual financial statement, Mr Maude blustered: "It's not my company."