Tories rake in seven times more donations than Labour thanks to billionaire backers
2 min read
Donors gave the Conservatives a total of £3.5 million last week - seven times more than Labour received.
The latest figures from the Electoral Commission reveal that three out of the four largest individual donations to the Tory party came from British billionaires.
Financial services giant Peter Hargreaves, who has a net worth of £2.4billion, gave the largest individual donation of £1million to the party.
Entrepreneur Malcolm Healey and Carphone Warehouse co-founder David Ross, who each have a net worth of over £1billion, both gave £250,000 to the Tory campaign.
Their donations account for just under half of the £3.5million that the party received in donations between 20 and 26 November.
This is a slight increase from last week, when the Tories took in a total of nearly £3million.
Labour, meanwhile, took in just £522,000 in the same period, the majority of which came from trade union donations.
Five trade unions gave a total of £440,400 to Labour, with the largest single donation of £250,000 given by the GMB union.
The Fire Brigades Union gave £111,000, while Unite gave £45,000, Unison gave £24,000 and the Communication Workers Union gave £10,000.
This week’s donations are in stark contrast to the previous week, when Labour got a £3 million boost from the trade union Unite.
The Liberal Democrats took nearly the same amount as Labour, raking in £509,000 from 15 individual donors.
And, the Green Party received a single £100,000 donation from the millionaire co-founder of fashion label Superdry, Julian Dunkerton.
No donations over £7,500 were recorded for Plaid Cymru, who received £70,000 last week, or the SNP, who received £10,000 last week.
PoliticsHome Newsletters
PoliticsHome provides the most comprehensive coverage of UK politics anywhere on the web, offering high quality original reporting and analysis: Subscribe
