The Electoral Commission have released party funding figures for UK political parties, showing that Labour continue to rack up substantial debts and to be reliant on union donations.
The figures relate to October 1st 2012 to December 31st 2012 (Q4) and can be seen fully here.
In Q4 2012 Labour received loans totalling £9,858,723. In comparison, the Conservatives had loans of £2,619,796, and the Lib Dems of only £359,252.
Labour are run on debt, no wonder they left the country with so much of it.
Four of the top 10 donors were trade unions giving money to Labour. They were Unite the Union £832,990, UNISON £386,363, GMB £316,475, Communication Workers Union, £179, 492. This totals to £1, 715, 320.
That’s nearly £2million from four unions to Labour.
The biggest Conservative donors are the National Conservative Draws Society, who donated £300k, and Lycamobile, who donated £110k.
In terms of non-union and non public money, the Lib Dems are actually challenging Labour. Total Labour donations were £2,592,885, which leaves, £877,565 if you remove those 4 major union donations. The Lib Dems in total raised £570,959. Indeed, the party’s chief fundraisers has been tweeting the party now receive more in total non-union donations, and from more people, than Labour:
Latest Party Funding figures show Lib Dems beat Labour again in non-union donations. For the 12th time in last 14 quarters.
— Ibrahim Taguri (@ibrahimtaguri) February 20, 2013
Latest Party Funding figures show UKIP have almost as many non-union donors as Labour. 21 donors versus 29.
— Ibrahim Taguri (@ibrahimtaguri) February 20, 2013
The Conservatives raised a total of £3,309,109 in donations.
In addition to receiving over £1.5 million in short money, Labour also received £457,630 in policy development grants from the Electoral Commission. Before this they had received at least another £840k in tax payer money to develop policy.
Given that they currently have only come up with Rob Halfon’s 10p tax rate and the Lib Dem’s mansion tax perhaps we should get our money back.
Overall the electoral commission say that donations were down nearly £3.7million from 2011, and public funding was down almost £320,000 from 2011.
