Labour Party raises 15 times more than Tories in donations during second week of campaign

Published

5 months ago

June 21, 2024

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The Labour Party raised almost £4.4m in the second full week of the general election campaign – close to 15 times the amount brought in by the Tories.

Rishi Sunak’s party took in just under £300,000 between 6 and 12 June.

Reform UK raised more than double this figure, with £742,000 taken. However, £500,000 of this money was handed over by Britain Means Business, a company run by Reform’s deputy leader Richard Tice.

The Liberal Democrats also took in more than the Conservatives, raising £335,000.

The Green Party raised £20,000.

Labour raised £4,383,400 – and its partner the Co-operative Party raised £60,000.

Follow live: More bad news for Tory campaign

The Conservatives raised £292,500, according to Electoral Commission figures.

The Tory figure is also roughly half of what they raised in the first full week of the campaign.

Between 30 May and 5 June, the Conservatives took in £574,918, compared to Labour’s £926,908.

However, looking at the 2019 election, the Conservative Party raised 10 times this figure in the first week of the campaign – raising £5.7m between 6 and 12 November 2019.

Labour took in £218,500 at this time.

Who gave the parties the most money?

Digging into the breakdown from the Electoral Commission, we can see a bit more about who gave the different parties the most money.

As mentioned, Reform’s biggest donor is a company run by their deputy leader.

A man called David Lilley also gave the party £100,000, and another notable contributor was Holly Vukadinovic – the maiden name of model Holly Valance – who gave £50,000.

For Labour, the biggest donor was Lord Sainsbury, who gave £2.5m, followed by Autoglass boss Gary Lubner, who handed over £900,000.

Their largest union donation came from train driver body Aslef, which donated £100,000.

For the Lib Dems, they received £150,000 from Adam Management Holdings, and another £100,000 from the late John Faulkner, a former party member who has left money to the party.

The Conservatives registered a £50,000 donation from “The Spring Lunch” – which is the name of one of their fundraising events – as well as £50,000 from Bestway Wholesale, a company which has a Tory peer named as a director.

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UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September – slower than expected

Published

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November 15, 2024

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UK economy grows by 0.1% between July and September - slower than expected

The UK economy grew by 0.1% between July and September, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

However, despite the small positive GDP growth recorded in the third quarter, the economy shrank by 0.1% in September, dragging down overall growth for the three month period.

The growth was also slower than what had been expected by experts and a drop from the 0.5% growth between April and June, the ONS said.

Economists polled by Reuters and the Bank of England had forecast an expansion of 0.2%, slowing from the rapid growth seen over the first half of 2024 when the economy was rebounding from last year’s shallow recession.

And the metric that Labour has said it is most focused on – the GDP per capita, or the economic output divided by the number of people in the country – also fell by 0.1%.

Reacting to the figures, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves said: “Am I satisfied with the numbers published today? Of course not. I want growth to be stronger, to come sooner, and also to be felt by families right across the country.”

“It’s why in my Mansion House speech last night, I announced some of the biggest reforms of our pension system in a generation to unlock long term patient capital, up to £80bn to help invest in small businesses and scale up businesses and in the infrastructure needs,” Ms Reeves later told Sky News in an interview.

“We’re four months into this government. There’s a lot more to do to turn around the growth performance of the last decade or so.”

New economy data tests chancellor’s growth plan

The sluggish services sector – which makes up the bulk of the British economy – was a particular drag on growth over the past three months. It expanded by 0.1%, cancelling out the 0.8% growth in the construction sector.

The UK’s GDP for the most recent quarter is lower than the 0.7% growth in the US and 0.4% in the Eurozone.

The figures have pushed the UK towards the bottom of the G7 growth table for the third quarter of the year.

It was expected to meet the same 0.2% growth figures reported in Germany and Japan – but fell below that after a slow September.

The pound remained stable following the news, hovering around $1.267. The FTSE 100, meanwhile, opened the day down by 0.4%.

The Bank of England last week predicted that Ms Reeves’s first budget as chancellor will increase inflation by up to half a percentage point over the next two years, contributing to a slower decline in interest rates than previously thought.

Announcing a widely anticipated 0.25 percentage point cut in the base rate to 4.75%, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) forecast that inflation will return “sustainably” to its target of 2% in the first half of 2027, a year later than at its last meeting.

The Bank’s quarterly report found Ms Reeves’s £70bn package of tax and borrowing measures will place upward pressure on prices, as well as delivering a three-quarter point increase to GDP next year.