Conservatives ahead in race for donations as poll looms next year
Donations to the Conservative Party are continuing to outstrip those to Labour ahead of the general election, expected in spring, according to the Electoral Commission.
David Cameron's party received 5,269,186 in the third quarter of 2009 –between July and September – while Labour was gifted just 3,045,377.
The Liberal Democrats were given 816,663. Overall, donations to political parties for the quarter stood at slightly more than 9.5m.
That was down on the 13.2m received between April and June. That figure was higher than usual with the European elections in May.
The majority of Labour's donations – 2,397,573 – came from trade unions, 202,557 was from individuals and 194,543 from companies. Labour's biggest donors were Unison (760,825), and Unite's Amicus (601,053) and TGWU (305,150) sections.
The Tories raised 3,236,828 from individual donors, including 252,000 from hedge fund manager Michael Farmer, 250,000 from engineering tycoon Jeffrey Whaley and 223,000 from property developer David Rowland. Another 1,635,127 came from companies, including 250,000 from IM Properties.
Labour's debts stood at 9,768,122 at the end of September compared with Tory loans totalling 4,153,939.
Labour increased its credit facilities by 2m to 6,209,000 in the third quarter. The Tories increased theirs by 10,000, taking them to 5,151,500.
The Lib Dems had outstanding loans of 337,185 and credit facilities of 1,061,000. Their biggest donor was the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust, which gave 230,833.
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