Fact and Fiction

[Suff]

Labour is claiming that the Tories are a bunch of Toffs with unprecedented access to the PM from a selected few people (dozens). So what it the fact of the matter?

Yes there are a few key donors to the Tory funds, but their number of donors actually exceeds Labour. Also 50% of Labour's funding comes from the Unions which means a very few Union leaders with direct access to a Labour PM. Union leaders who don't ask their members before pushing and striking deals with the government.

So whilst the Tory donors will be pushing for changes which make it easier to make money, which filters down to jobs and more wealth for the people, the Labour donors will be pushing for changes which are damaging to companies and reduce both jobs and company profits.

I know how I see it but then I run my own company and I get absolutely nothing from anyone except the NHS when I'm in the UK.

Note that the Tories got less than £45 million in funds over the last 3 years. Labour got more than £60m.

[Workingman]

Hmm the article is nearly two years old and things are very different today. Unite, Unison, GMB and other unions did cut their donations to Labour when mad Ed introduced his funding reforms making the political levy part of union subs "optional".

Not that it really matters. Political parties exist to provide a service to their backers, first and foremost, with the electorate a distant second. Who the backers are, how many of them and the size of their donations will depend on a party's political ideology. Providing there is transparency about who gives and how much I do not see a problem.

I would rather have the current system than some dog's dinner of State funding.

[cromwell]

At the gun club where I'm a member there is another member called Roy. Back in the 70's and '80's Roy was a member of the Labour party and the NUM. He participated in selection meetings where the new Labour candidate was to be chosen for his constituency.

"You ought to see these people we got. University Professors shaking their fingers at us and telling us that we had to choose a left-winger".

Well here's an interesting fact. The University Professors back in the day didn't succeed in becoming candidates. But their offspring did.

Ed Balls - father, a University Professor.
Ed Miliband and David Miliband - father, a University Professor
Ed Jarvis, MP for Barnsley - father, a University Professor
Emma Reynolds MP for Wolverhampton - father a teacher at a private school
and so on.

[Suff]

Yes the toffs slur is quite a bit of "pot calling the kettle black" isn't it..... But people lap it up.

WM, yes they did reform, but the unions remain the single biggest backer to Labour and have the single biggest access. As you say, so long as it's transparent. The problem with transparency is it has to be conspicuously transparent. So, for instance, at the beginning and end of campaigning, I'd like to see each party have to publish their funding statistics by demographics.

That would make them quite a bit more open and quite a bit more careful where they solicit money from.