Dead in a Glastonbury loo: did top Tory top self?

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Christopher Shale, chairman of the West Oxfordshire Conservative Association, was discovered dead by police at around 9am.

The festival's host Michael Eavis said he was told by police it was 'a suicide situation'.

However, Tory party sources said they believed he had had a heart attack but the exact cause of death is yet to be confirmed.

Mr Eavis, 75, spoke of his sadness over the death during a press conference held earlier today.

The farmer said: 'Apparently I'm told it was a suicide situation in the early hours of this morning. It was in the Winnebago area.

'It's very very sad - I can't say too much about it."
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The cause of Shale's death is unknown, but the Glastonbury festival organiser, Michael Eavis, told a press conference on Sunday morning that a "senior Tory party member" had died. "We're told it is a suicide situation," Eavis said. "It is very, very sad."

But later a police source indicated that ongoing investigations suggested the death was not suicide. Shale's body was taken to a local mortuary in a white private ambulance on Sunday afternoon. Police said a postmortem would take place in due course.

In a fresh statement, Eavis said: "I would like to express my deepest sympathy to the family and friends of the man whose body was found on the site early on Sunday morning." Festival officials also said privately that it was not believed that Shale had taken his own life.
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badhorsie said:

Do you have "Winnebago areas" at festivals in the US?

I had a real feeling that it would be someone well known when I read that a man in his fifties was found dead.So sad for his family

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In a leaked strategy memo, published in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday, Mr Shale had said the Tories were seen as ‘voracious, crass, always on the take’.
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Downing Street confirmed it had phoned Mr Shale about the leaked memo at 12.30pm. But it insisted the call was not a rebuke.

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