In a further blow for outgoing Tory leader Rishi Sunak figures have revealed that donations to the Conservative party this year were not quite as generous as they have been in the past. It transpires that Sunak’s Tories received less than 10 per cent of the donations Boris Johnson managed to wrangle in 2019. And to add insult to injury, the Times reports that the cash-strapped Conservatives are even considering using conference to hold leadership hustings to save funds. Oo er.
In 2019, Boris’s Brexit-focused campaign attracted a whopping £19.3 million – over 10 times more than Sunak achieved this year. The outgoing Tory leader brought in just £1.85 million from reticent backers after billionaire businessman John Caudwell (who gave Johnson’s campaign £500,000 five years ago) withdrew his support and backed Labour instead. Peter Hargreaves, who donated a round million in 2019, didn’t give a penny to Sunak either.
As if the Frank Hester episode hadn’t caused enough upset for the Tories, it now transpires the party took £50,000 from Westminster Development Services Limited. A business part-owned by tycoon Prakash Hinduja, the donation was accepted just 10 days after he had been, er, jailed for exploiting domestic staff. Crikey. And the biggest Tory donor during the campaign period was the National Conservative Draws Society, a weekly lottery organisation which contributed a total of £225,000 to Sunak’s campaign. Not that his lucky number was drawn this time…
Meanwhile Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour party received around £10 million in donations over the general election campaign, boosted by Caudwell’s defection. Though perhaps it’s not all bad news for Sunak’s boys in blue. Despite receiving almost £8.5 million more than their rivals, Starmer’s army took just 10 per cent more of the national vote share than the Tories. And other parties don’t have much to shout about either, with the pro-independence SNP’s only donation a bequest. Fitting for a dying movement…
Lacking funds and defecting donors will only heighten tensions in the much-reduced parliamentary party, with a race for the top job looming in the distance. A successful leadership candidate will need to woo wealthy backers. Suella Braverman has already made her unofficial pitch while Kemi Badenoch blew into the first shadow cabinet meeting with fighting talk. And with money woes abound, could the ‘ultimate dark horse‘ and money magnet Boris Johnson resurface? Stay tuned…
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