Although Richard Desmond recently pledged his allegiance to Ukip’s Nigel Farage, the media mogul previously backed Tony Blair, with the owner of the Express papers donating £100,000 to Labour in 2001.
Now, in his new biography Richard Desmond: The Real Deal, Desmond claims that he made a £5,000 profit from the donation. Desmond writes that the donation came about after he attended a dinner with Lord Alli:
‘Waheed said Tony really liked me. Would I make a contribution to the party? What they didn’t realise was that I had put everything I’d ever had – some £37 million – into the Express, along with £97 million that I had borrowed, my house and half my pension pot.’
As a way around his cash flow issue, Desmond offered £100,000 worth of advertising. However, Alastair Campbell — who attended Desmond’s book launch last night — said the donation would need to be in cash in order for Labour to be able to accept it. As a result, a compromise was reached by which he gave them the money, and then they paid for the advertising:
’So I gave them the cash and invoiced them for the advertising separately. Actually the advertising came to £105,000 so I made a profit of £5,000 on the deal. I remember Gordon Brown saying some time later, ‘Was it true you made a profit on that advertising?’ I replied, ‘Yes, I did actually, I got more back.’ He said, ‘Tut, tut, tut.’
Still, Mr S is sure this isn’t the first time a donor will have benefitted as a result of their donation.
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