BBC: ‘Political parties’ donations fall by almost £1m’

By Stephen Tall | Mon 20th August 2012 - 2:05 pm

Here’s the BBC News report:

Donations to political parties fell by almost £1m during the second quarter of this year, official figures show. The Electoral Commission said £7,873,478 in funding had been reported – down £992,312 on the first three months of the year. The Conservatives received £3,785,579, Labour £2,964,471 and the Liberal Democrats £717,797.

The Lib Dem figure of £718k is the party’s lowest second quarter fundraising performance since 2006 (when it was less than half this year’s total, at £334k). This graph from the Electoral Commission which compiles the figures shows the disparity between the parties’ financial muscle, a gap which is compounded with every passing quarter:

Perhaps it’s not so very hard to see why neither the Tories nor Labour is keen on reform of party funding?

I have, by the way, uploaded the following Googledoc spreadsheets for viewing:

* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.

4 Comments

Richard Dean 21st Aug '12 - 2:20am

Well, there’s a recession on, and it’s a principle of good management that people should not be rewarded for causing a problem.
Simon Banks 21st Aug '12 - 11:33am

The logic of that, Richard, is that presumably the Liberal Democrats are the most responsible for the recession, followed by Labour and the Conservatives have the cleanest hands.
Richard Dean 21st Aug '12 - 12:09pm

If you say so, Simon, although perceptions are involved and perceptions are not always accurate. What kind of relation are you assuming between perceived blame and reduction in donations ? Linear is just one of many possibilities.
Matthew Huntbach 21st Aug '12 - 1:15pm

@ Richard Dean
If the recession were just in one country, and it was clear that it was due to the policies of the governing party of that country, you might have a point. However, if the political parties really are all bad for causing the recession, that implies there is some easy alternative way of governing they should have proposed that would not have caused it. It has to be an easy solution because one can hardly call people bad and punish them for not doing something that is so difficult it would be unreasonable to expect them to do it. So, just what is that easy solution the parties should have proposed but didn’t? And to what extent can we discount the electorate from responsibility for their free choice of voting for these naughty parties which did not propose the easy solution? If the answer is that the electorate did not vote for anyone else because no-one else could afford to do what is necessary to develop and promote something different, doesn’t that suggest the problem lies with the electorate for refusing to fund an alternative?