SOME of Britain’s richest people, companies and trade unions gave more than £7 million to political parties in the first week of the General Election campaign.
According to details released by the Electoral Commission, the Conservative Party received £4.1 million compared to £2.7 million handed to Labour for their campaign war chests.
The other parties were left trailing a long way behind with the Lib Dems given £180,000, UKIP £48,000, the Women’s Equality Party £20,000 and the Greens £15,000.
These sums, handed over during May 3 to May 9, are for national campaigning and do not include smaller funds handed to local candidates or campaigns.
Labour’s donation included over £2.3 million from the country’s largest trade union Unite and much smaller sums from the GMB (£62,000), Communication Workers Union (£175,000) and Rail, Maritime and Transport Union (£25,000).
Meanwhile, the Conservatives received large donations from wealthy individuals – including Midlands property tycoon John Bloor who handed over £400,000. His company, Bloor Homes, is currently involved in a long running planning wrangle with Birmingham City Council over the development of almost 1,000 homes on the former North Worcestershire Golf Course site at Longbridge.
Further major donors include businessman John Griffin, the owner of London cab company Addison Lee, who donated £900,000 that week and hedge fund manager John Armitage, who was a backed of last year’s remain campaign, who gave the Tories £500,000 earlier this month.
The £7 million donated to parties in the first official week of campaigning is almost three times the £2.5 million given during the first week of the 2015 campaign. But this is a snap election giving the parties had less warning to build up campaign war chests ahead of the official campaign.
According to the Electoral Commission the Tories also received almost double the donations given to Labour betweeen January and March this year. The party received £5.46 million over the three months while Labour took £2.65 million.
