As many as 50? After all, most of Labour’s donations come from half a dozen sources.

http://liberalconspiracy.org/2010/01/08/unions-are-propping-up-the-labour-party/

Or, as Reuters puts it:

While Labour is regarded as a party propped up by union cash, it is also dependent on big contributions from the wealthy.

In 2008, for example, Harry Potter author JK Rowling gave one million pounds to the party and regular donor, former Sainsbury’s chairman and former science minister, Lord David Sainsbury — stumped up three million pounds.

In 2007, Sainsbury gave two million pounds — as did steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal.

The Tories are likely to have the broadest base of any of the parties.

I’d suggest 50 is about 40 more than labour.

A broader analysis of parties and donations can be read here:

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/?p=5835

Quote from the piece:

“Yet, even allowing for such considerations, the numbers show that across a decade 39 per cent of all donation income received by the three main parties combined was sourced from just 1 per cent of the 23,000 cash donations which the three main parties declared between them.

As we drill down further into the data, moreover, it becomes clear that these 224 large donations originated from fewer than 60 separate sources – a combination of individuals, companies and trade unions. Furthermore, several big individual donors would appear to be linked through family ties, and here are traceable connections between a number of wealthy individuals and individual companies. So the ‘effective number’ of major donors to parties is actually less than 60.”

As above, glass houses and stones spring to mind Sunny.

As a Lib Dem I half wish we had as many big donors like that…

As above, glass houses and stones spring to mind Sunny.

I know you guys are desperate to play whataboutery all the time, but you’ll have to show me evidence where we’ve endorsed the fact so many of Labour donors come from a narrow base or rich businessmen who were (in the past anyway) then quickly given peerages.

At least Ed Miliband is trying to move away from ‘cash for peerages’ – Cameron still hasn’t. Any principled Tory would at least cry foul about that.

As for the unions: it’s an easy charge to make but grossly simplistic. The money is that of union members, who contribute monthly. They can leave a union if they don’t want to pay the levy.

I know you guys are desperate to play whataboutery all the time, but you’ll have to show me evidence where we’ve endorsed the fact so many of Labour donors come from a narrow base or rich businessmen who were (in the past anyway) then quickly given peerages.

I was just surprised that it was as many as 50 groups and as little as 50%. It’s hardly earth-shattering news that political donations come from a very narrow base, and criticising the Tories for it is odd, when they have the broadest donations of any of the parties.

Which “we” are we talking about here Sunny? If it’s your Labour “we” then you did endorse that state of affairs by giving so many of these donors peerages even if you have changed your mind now, (no doubt entirely unrelated to the drop in big donors that is expected with any party moving from power to opposition).

There are several reasons why one might want to be in a union, (yes even evil old libertarian Falco here sees some good in unions), political donations seem to allow nothing more than the beer and sarnies rounds for the union leaders. It would be better if only individuals could donate to parties and no more than £1000 p/a pp to prevent undue influence.

As for the “whataboutery”, some of us might prefer to describe that as pointing out blatant hipocricy.

“They can leave a union if they don’t want to pay the levy.”

Pretty sure that you can opt out of paying the political levy but remain in the union actually.

And I think that was one of Maggie’s bits.

Makes me laugh when the brownshirts are moaning about the unions, and how they don’t represent many people.

Yea, like the 50 odd rich groups who fund the majority of the scum party.

Partisan bombthrowing aside, this sort of thing is fascinating as it tells you a lot about power and influence within political parties; there’s a reason why Blair was so keen to attract donors outside the Labour Movement, for example.

The broader analysis is indeed interesting.

But we are playing ‘let’s pretend union money doesn’t confer power and influence on a very small group of (male) individuals.’

“They can leave a union if they don’t want to pay the levy”

How very caring for the ordinary working man Sunny. If you don’t want your cash going to Labour, you’re not welcome in the union.

But back to the article, how many donor groups accounting for 50% of their money would make you happy? 100, 300, a million? You must have a number in mind, otherwise you’re just moaning for the sake of moaning.