David Miliband’s monetary advantage

If cash was the one and only determining factor in elections, then David Miliband would have the Labour leadership contest sewn up.  As figures released today show, he’s raked in a hefty £185,000 in donations to his campaign.  That’s over 6 times more than Ed Balls has managed, and 12 times his brother’s total.

Miliband’s monetary advantage is eyecatching in itself. But it also lets him trigger one of his electoral ploys. Smartly, if cynically, he has pledged to contribute one-third of his donations to a “fighting fund to help Labour win seats back at the next election”. So the more cash he has in the coffers, the more he can hand over to Labour.

In practice, as he reveals on his site, this means he he has trained “180 Labour Party members in community organising to help the Party campaign on the ground.” A barefaced tug on Labour heartstrings, sure.