The Electoral Commission has today released figures on donations to political parties in the UK for the first 3 months of 2013. The figures show that a total of £9 million was donated to political parties in this period – that is over £3 million a month! Austerity?
Not for those playing politics.
Inevitably the Labour Party and the Conservatives raked in the biggest amounts of donations collecting over £7 million. The Liberal Democrats by their own standards also took a decent amount collecting just over £800,000.
The party press office proudly tweeted:
The full break down of party donations look likes this:
| Party | Cash | Non-cash | Other | Total | ||||
| Amount (£) | No. | Amount (£) | No. | Amount (£) | No. | Amount (£) | No. | |
| British National Party | 32,000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 32,000 | 1 |
| Conservative and Unionist Party | 3,447,300 | 106 | 179,877 | 26 | 35,847 | 4 | 3,663,024 | 136 |
| Co-operative Party | 411,723 | 4 | 1,250 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 412,973 | 5 |
| Democracy 2015 | 8,055 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8,055 | 1 |
| Green Party | 23,110 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 23,110 | 8 |
| Labour Party | 1,836,105 | 96 | 1,845,382 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 3,681,486 | 121 |
| Liberal Democrats | 792,454 | 64 | 50,256 | 13 | 0 | 0 | 842,710 | 77 |
| Plaid Cymru – The Party of Wales | 18,511.34 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 18,511 | 1 |
| Scottish National Party (SNP) | 10,000 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10,000 | 1 |
| The Socialist Party of Great Britain | 295,775 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 295,775 | 0 |
| UK Independence Party (UK I P) | 47,650 | 9 | 26,500 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 74,150 | 13 |
| Total | 6,922,683 | 290 | 2,103,264 | 69 | 35,847 | 4 | 9,061,794 | 363 |
So who has this sort of money to splash around in times of austerity?
Labour received both the largest individual donation from Mr John Mills (who is interestingly also the Chair of Labour campaign group calling for a referendum on EU membership). Labour also received a neat £1.3 million from Trade Unions, of which over £750,000 came from UNITE.
Money well spent for the union members?
The Tories however seem to rely more on people who can afford big donations of £500,000 each.
The top ten donors to all parties though were:
| Donor name | Total amount (£) | Recipient | |
| 1 | Mr John Mills | 1,647,500 | Labour Party |
| 2 | Unite the Union | 766,963 | Labour Party |
| 3 | Mr Michael Davis | 500,000 | Conservative and Unionist Party |
| 4 | Ms May Makhzoumi | 500,000 | Conservative and Unionist Party |
| 5 | The Co-operative Group (CWS) Ltd | 412,973 | Co-operative Party |
| 6 | Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers | 314,388 | Labour Party |
| 7 | Mr Stanley Robert Parker | 295,775 | The Socialist Party of Great Britain |
| 8 | Mr James R Lupton | 255,000 | Conservative and Unionist Party |
| 9 | Mr Michael S Farmer | 254,334 | Conservative and Unionist Party |
| 10 | Mr Graham R Hunnable | 200,000 | Liberal Democrats |
On the other end of the scale, The Green Party took over £23,000 from individual donations. Pretty small you think? Well, not in comparison to £10,000 that the SNP received.
Austerity…certainly not for Conservative and Labour donors!
Full information about party funding can be found here.
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