Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Another reason why there wont be a general election this year

The Electoral Commission report on party funding in 2008 is out today and I suspect it wont make happy reading for Labour supporters. Let's look at the figures;

Donations in the last quarter of 2008

  • Conservatives £ 5,138,850
  • Labour party £ 2,621,952
  • Liberal Democrats £ 960,898
Loans (ie debts outstanding)
  • Conservatives £ 6,897,552
  • Labour Party £ 11,553,280
  • Liberal Democrats £ 523,171
In other words Labour has half the financial support and twice the debts of the main opposition party.

To put these numbers in the context of that valiant little fighter, the Green Party, we have no "loans" and received £ 43,000 in donations (plus ten thousand more if you include the Scottish Green Party, to compare like with like). That's a twentieth of the funds of the Lib Dems.

Now let's look at the ten largest political donors for 2008 (by party);

Labour
  • Unite - AMICUS section £2,591,741
  • Lord David Sainsbury £2,511,808
  • UNISON £1,780,122
  • GMB £1,368,873
  • Unite - TGWU section £1,364,175
  • Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers £1,111,049
  • Joanne Rowling £1,000,000
Tories
  • Bearwood Corporate Services £1,600,893
  • National Conservative Draws Society £836,801
  • David Whelan £750,000
Yes, that's right folks, not only are Labour are getting less money overall but a far smaller proportion of it is coming from small donations. What colour is the people's flag again? If it wasn't for Harry Potter, Sainsbury's and the unions they'd be sunk.

Other news of interest: what on Earth are the English Democrats doing with a £ 101,447 debt hanging over them? Gambling on electoral successes that never came? A new pool for their leader? This only compares to the £ 100,000 debt for the Progressive Party - and I've no idea who they are! Money well spent I hope.

ps I have removed a silly inaccuracy that was helpfully pointed out in the comments.

9 comments:

Green Gordon said...

Where is the BNP?

Jim Jepps said...

I think they're late with their homework - again!

Matt Sellwood said...

Jim - I'm confused. You say that there was a surge in donations in the third quarter, 'directly after Gordon Brown was elected leader'. But, umm..wasn't he elected in June 2007?

Maybe I'm being dim?

Matt

Jim Jepps said...

Matt - don't start playing mind games by bringing up obvious errors in my post - that's hardly cricket is it?

I guess the surge was due to something else - now excuse me I have an appointment with Mr Sulk!

Matt Sellwood said...

You should be flattered that I have such trust in your intellectual coherency that my instant reaction was to think that I must be being stupid....!

Jim Jepps said...

One swallow doesn't make a spring Sellwood!

Unknown said...

Why is JK Rowling giving a million quid to Labour?? If Harry Potter was real he would've kicked GB in the teeth and made off with the bailout money

ModernityBlog said...

isn't Bearwood Corporate Services merely a vehicle for Ashcroft's payments to the Tories?

Jim Jepps said...

Well spotted Mod.

According to the FT today Ashcroft is under investigation for this front organisation (here)

If it's within the law its certainly not in the spirit of the rules. Apparently most of this money came from fund raising dinners (plus raffles etc).

Who was there? How do we know that these people are allowed to donate to a UK political party - ooooooh - naughty!