thetorydiary: Party funding

Party funding

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Latest quarterly donations feature individual gift of over £1,000,000 to the Conservative Party

Today the Electoral Commission has published the details of donations to political parties during the second quarter of 2009.

A breakdown of the donations is available on its website, with overall cash and non-cash donations to the Conservatives totalling £6,394,673 (compared with £4,391,632 for Labour and £1,132,079 for the Liberal Democrats).

Perhaps most noteworthy is the fact that among the 371 donations to the Conservative Party which have registered, one stands out: that from David Rowland for the sum of £1,036,050. (The Times profiles city tycoon Mr Rowland here).

Other cash donations of £50,000 or more were:

IPGL Ltd - £262,500
Michael Farmer - £252,000
William Cook Ltd - £200,000
Michael Hintze - £106,500
Anthony Bickford - £101,000
Alexander Fraser - £100,000
IM Properties plc - £80,000
George Robinson - £75,000
Hani Farsi - £60,968.46
Dominic Shorthouse - £58,500
Andrew Scott - £58,332
John Beckwith - £52,500
Thomas Scott - £50,270
Addison Lee plc - £50,000
Jacqueline Beecroft: £50,000
Broadland Properties Ltd - £50,000
David Ord Ltd - £50,000
William Hobhouse - £50,000
Ivor Bracka Ltd - £50,000
Lizon Properties - £50,000
Rainham Steel Co Ltd - £102,900
Anthony Reeves - £50,000
Neil Record - £50,000
Anthony Reeves - £50,000
David Royds - £50,000
Ramez Sousou - £50,000
Andrew Stewart - £50,000

The National Conservative Draws Society donated £154,500 in cash; additionally, £124,520 of research was provided by Susan Anstey (Lady Ashcroft) and £81,099 of focus group research was provided by Bearwood Corporate Services, one of Lord Ashcroft's companies.

Jonathan Isaby

Posted at 12:13 in Party funding | Permalink | Comments (37)

Thursday, July 30, 2009

The Conservative Party outspent Labour by more than £5 million in 2008

4pm update: Conservative Party chairman Eric Pickles has issued the following statement:

"Labour's unhealthy reliance on the unions means they are powerless to actually represent the views of the country and bring about the change the public desperately needs. The Conservatives are widening their donor base as more and more people realise David Cameron is the only person to mend broken Britain."

---

The BBC is reporting the latest figures to be published by the Electoral Commission of the various parties' income and spending last year:

"The Conservatives outspent Labour by more than £5m in 2008 according to financial accounts published by the Electoral Commission. They show the Tories had income of £32.3m and spent £31.9m. Labour had income of £34m and spent £26.2m.
"The Liberal Democrats got £5.4m income and spent just over £6m. Labour still owes £11m to supporters who made unsecured loans. The BNP has been fined at least £500 after failing to hand over its accounts in time."

Click here to download the Conservative Party's accounts for 2008 as published today.

More details about the other parties is available via the Electoral Commission website.

Jonathan Isaby

Posted at 13:37 in Party funding | Permalink | Comments (25)

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Lord Ashcroft attacks Labour "hypocrisy" on banning political donations by Commonwealth non-doms

Lord Ashcroft has today given a rare interview to the Daily Telegraph in which he has attacked the Government's proposed legislation banning non-doms from donating to political parties in Britain:

"It is political grandstanding. Labour is ending some of our old established precedents which allow Commonwealth citizens to come to the UK where they are entitled to vote, stand for Parliament, go into the House of Lords, and make donations. They are not removing their right to stand for office but are stopping them giving financial support. Pure hypocrisy."

However, he refused to enter into a dialogue about his tax status, only saying that "when it becomes mandatory for everyone to discuss their tax affairs in public then I will be happy to do so."

The Conservative Party deputy chairman, who oversees the party's impressive marginal seats operation, also reveals in the interview that he will step down from that role after the general election:

"The work will continue after the election so we maintain political activity in our constituencies over a whole Parliament not just the last few months. It will continue but without me. My work in the party is done. It is virtually all now on autopilot."

He added that he intended to continue supporting the party financially after the general election but rejected the suggestion that he had in any way bought political influence through his donations to Conservative coffers:

"Labour MPs talk about bringing influence but can't name any influence that I have brought to the party. Few people know my political views. Yet they refuse to look at the influence of the unions in the Labour Party."

Unlike the Telegraph's Andrew Pierce, I am not surprised that Lord Ashcroft intends stepping down after the election; as he says, his work is done - and we should thank him for all his support for the party, not least during some of its most difficult days. A fair-weather friend he most certainly is not.

The Tory peer gave the interview to mark his £5 million gift to Anglia Ruskin University.

Jonathan Isaby

Posted at 08:39 in Party funding | Permalink | Comments (38)

Monday, July 13, 2009

Britain's 'Political Club' costs us £485m

Congratulations to Michael Crick and producer Giles Edwards for their Radio 4 programme broadcast earlier today about The Political Club (available to listen again here for the next seven days). It was the BBC at its best.

It records the cost of the 29,000 people who work in British politics as elected members or as advisers. Here's a graphical summary of the thirty minute programme's main findings:

Three people made the most interesting contributions:

Nigel Farage MEP openly acknowledged that his party would cease to exist in any meaningful way if it wasn't for the largesse that it gets from its representation in the European Parliament. He predicted that the BNP could double their numbers of MEPs if they used their allowances in a professional way to develop their party structure in the North West and Yorkshire.
Liberal Democrat Simon Hughes was quite proud that LibDem councillors are forced to give 10% of their allowances to central funds or face deselection. This is taxpayer funding of political parties by the back door as Michael Crick readily acknowledged.
Clare Short, now an independent MP, said that this backdoor funding had isolated politicians from the electorate. If they had to raise funds from voters they might have to listen to them, she said, but they can now (continued a Sunderland Labourite) take party funds from the state and pay new private agencies to deliver leaflets (because of the collapse of any activist base).

Tim Montgomerie

> Harry Phibbs on councillors costing £241.5m

Posted at 14:02 in Parliamentarians' duties and remuneration, Party funding | Permalink | Comments (25)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Conservative fundraising outstripped Labour by more than a quarter between January and March

Just in from ITN:

"The Conservatives are outstripping Labour in fundraising by more than a quarter ahead of the next General Election. David Cameron's party received over £4 million in donations in the first quarter of this year, compared to the £2.8 million raised by Labour.

"Despite Labour's inferior flow of funds, their donations are slightly up on the previous three months, while the Opposition's total was about one million pounds down, according to Electoral Commission records. Donations to all parties in the period were up at £9.1 million in lieu of the recession, but the figures precede the tumult over MPs' expenses which many fear will dissuade benefactors from giving more."

More detail is to be found on the Electoral Commission website.

Jonathan Isaby

Posted at 12:21 in Party funding | Permalink | Comments (9)

Monday, May 18, 2009

The Conservatives could be Rantzen-ed if we do not clean house before a General Election

A senior aide to David Cameron told me over the weekend that the Conservative leader agrees with Tory members that repayment of wrongly claimed allowances is not going to be enough to meet the public mood.

Yesterday, I set out five things that David Cameron needs to do next:

All those things - particularly number one - need to happen BEFORE a General Election. The party cannot go into an election with the likes of Andrew MacKay and Julie Kirkbride remaining as Tory MPs. Today's Daily Mail reports that Esther Rantzen is considering running against disgraced Labour MP Margaret Moran:

"Miss Rantzen acknowledged that the MP had agreed to hand back the cash. 'She may think this is enough. Her constituents, however, may beg to differ - and if they do, I am more than happy to offer myself up as an alternative."

The former That's Life presenter "urged anti-sleaze campaigner Martin Bell - who famously unseated the former Tory MP Neil Hamilton in Tatton - to produce a guide to political novices on how to beat MPs." She told the Mail: "Surely Mr Bell could now offer a new generation of hopefuls a few tips on how it's done? Because frankly we are sick of so many of our party political MPs, and their ghastly conspiracy to extract as much money from us as possible."

The internet makes it very easy for such "a new generation of hopefuls" to emerge. The Sun suggests that Mr Cameron will call for an immediate General Election. He shouldn't want that election until he has cleaned up his own house.

Tim Montgomerie

Posted at 07:51 in Conservative strategy, Parliamentarians' duties and remuneration, Party democracy and membership, Party funding | Permalink | Comments (52)

Sunday, May 17, 2009

The five things that David Cameron must do next

We have confirmation this morning from a poll for PoliticsHome.com that voters have recognised that Cameron is outperforming Brown in the saga over expenses. 57% of voters think David Cameron handled the scandal best, compared with 11% saying Brown had. But there is also warning in the poll: "More than eight in 10 voters wanted MPs caught abusing expenses deselected." If the Conservatives do not clean house there is a serious risk that insurgent candidates will do so.

Here are five things that David Cameron should do next:

Unethical MPs including Andrew MacKay and Julie Kirbride must cease to be Tory MPs. A ConservativeHome poll on Thursday found that 65% of grassroots members thought that repaying wrongly claimed expenses was "not nearly enough". It is entirely proper that Mr Cameron is giving his MPs the opportunity to prove their innocence before his scrutiny committee but if they are on the wrong side of what is acceptable Mr Cameron should not hesitate to deselect them. That surely must include Andrew MacKay and Julie Kirkbride? Claiming two second home allowances and not paying for a first home is a clear abuse of the intention of the facility. Neither are fit to remain as Conservative MPs. Without decisive action the Conservatives will face Martin Bell-style candidates.

Introduce a power of recall for MPs between elections. California has it. If an elected official so abuses his or her position between elections, voters can force them from office before the scheduled time of election. There needs to be a large threshold of signatures for such a recall election to happen but it should be part of a balanced package of reformas that also see backbench MPs paid more transparently and given more powers to scrutinise the executive. MPs need to know that there is no such thing as a safe seat.

The leadership must stop hiding behind Commons convention and support calls for the Speaker to go. His reputation has sunk so low that he was the subject of running jokes on a sports programme yesterday (Five Live's Fighting Talk). As reported by The Sunday Times today, "the Speaker had vetoed radical reform of the expenses system in a series of meetings and had exploded with rage when challenged about his own second home allowance claims." In today's Mail on Sunday, Douglas Carswell MP summarises the case for action against Michael Martin. He is joined by former Tory leadership candidate David Davis: "We need a new Speaker who can live up to the courage and independence of Speaker Lenthall and whose eyes only see and whose tongue only speaks as the will of the British people directs. The will of the people is clear. That will must be expressed firmly by a new Speaker of the House, and it must be done now. " As Fraser Nelson writes in the News of the World: "This uber-stooge fought reform every inch. He spent £300,0000 of our money on a legal battle to keep MPs’ expenses private. Medieval protocol means no MP criticises him. But I’d say it’s time to tear up the old rulebook. The MPs have lost all moral authority. Someone needs to take charge." The Tory leader should defy convention and urge immediate installation of a Speaker untainted by what has gone on.

Put together a plan that will substantially reduce the cost of politics. A key reason that expenses-gate (Guido thinks we should call it Snoutgate) is causing so much anger is that it is happening at a time when millions of families are struggling to make ends meet. They are sat at the kitchen table with bills they can't pay and they are reading about MPs who are claiming taxpayers' money for £700 massage chairs and to clean out moats. Cameron needs to show that he has a plan to cut the overall cost of politics. His abolition of the Communications Allowance and a 10% cut in the number of MPs are good starts but they are only starts. We need a manifesto for Cutting The Cost Of Politics and we need it out there soon. It should rule out taxpayer funding of party politics.

Put forward a bold plan to renew Britain. There is a risk that voters will think that the three big parties are all the same - the same when it comes to sleaze and indistinguishable on policy. The European Elections could see big showings for UKIP, the Greens and the BNP. Our enemy is no longer just Labour but apathy and protest, too. The next Tory manifesto must give people real reasons to vote Conservative and not for fringe parties.