Ed Miliband, unions and money

A quick aggregation of the declared donations to the Ed Miliband for Leader campaign (so far – I’d expect some donations in the last stages of the campaign still to appear):

£133,000 from trade unions (43% of the total)
£80,951 from other large donors (i.e. over £1,500) (26%)
£95,000 from small donors (31%)
£308,951 in total

Source: donations declared on the Ed Miliband website.

Read more by or more about or .
This entry was posted in News.
Advert

19 Comments

  • boilermaker 1st Oct '10 - 1:37pm

    Have you got a total and breakdown of contributions to David Miliband’s campaign?

  • @boilermaker David M got 8% of his donations from unions, I hear he got a lot of large donations from single donors tho.

    The problem with unions is that their leadership speak with one voice on behalf of millions of people – profoundly undemocratic, and often union leaderships do not represent the views of most workers, who aren’t union members.

    Much better that workers make their voices known through elections to the government.

  • boilermaker 1st Oct '10 - 2:11pm

    blanco

    Needless to say I disagree. Union leaderships are democratically elected and they recommend to the members who they think is the best candidate. The members are then free to vote for whomever they choose in the privacy of their own homes.

    It’s not a perfect system but if you believe in collective political action, as millions of us obviously do, it’s the best chance we have of redressing the balance which is tilted in favour of the millionaires who bankrolled David Miliband’s campaign.

  • Terry Gilbert 1st Oct '10 - 2:36pm

    @blanco – To be fair, Ed Milliband won the votes of individual trades unionists, rather than a block vote, since those who pay the political levy as part of their union subscription each received an individual vote.
    Another good point (Hat Tip: letters column in today’s Guardian) is that Ed gained a ‘First past the post’ majority of all the votes cast – it was only after MPs’ and (to a lesser extent) Constituency Members’ votes were ‘weighted up’ in accordance with Labour’s convoluted system that David edged ahead. A lead that was, of course, wiped out by the alternative vote system.

  • Anthony Aloysius St 1st Oct '10 - 3:22pm

    “Much better that workers make their voices known through elections to the government.”

    I tried that, by voting Lib Dem in May. So forgive me for some scepticism!

  • Terry Gilbert 1st Oct '10 - 3:43pm

    If you count all votes equally, overall, in the final tally, Ed won 175,519 votes, and David only 147,220.

  • And your point is?

    If this is not intended to be a provocative, tribal article I apologise in advance.

  • Mike(The Labour one) 1st Oct '10 - 4:50pm

    I imagine the point is the one disappointingly parroted by Simon Hughes- that it’s some kind of bribe and his union paymasters will expect him to do what they say.

  • boilermaker 1st Oct '10 - 4:57pm

    Simon Hughes has massive anti-union form.

    He said in a recent lecture that union-funded socialist parties had no place in politics.

  • maybe only Ashcroft and Murdoch should fund, decide who we vote for

    after all the Coalition have now allowed Murdoch to own more local radio, tv and newspapers

    and Ashcroft millionas won the odd marginal

    very democratic

  • The donations from the unions and comments attributed to them are ill informed. All unions can only pay towards Political Parties if the members opt to pay into them. The donations and funds are then handled by a national committee usually of no less that 12 people directly elected from each of the geographical regions that make up the union… pretty democratic. Oh and the leaders usually dont have a vote.

  • If Ed Miliband getting £133k in donations from unions means he’s in the control of cthe unions, what should I conclude from the Lib Dems getting £2.5m in donations from a convicted fraudster?

  • @Steve
    A genuine Q please, if the Unions can only donate the political levy if the member gives consent, why is there a need for a committee? Surely the Union(s) must know the total they are allowed to pay and could give it directly to the Labour Party?

  • vince thurnell 1st Oct '10 - 10:34pm

    Chris sh, because the political levy does not in whole go into the Labour parties coffers. It can be used for anything political, take the CWU for instance , a proportion of their political levy will go to fighting privatisation. The committee decides what percentage of the political levy goes to the Labour party.

  • Why do Q Hotels need to get involved in the Labour leadership election?

Post a Comment

Lib Dem Voice welcomes comments from everyone but we ask you to be polite, to be on topic and to be who you say you are. You can read our comments policy in full here. Please respect it and all readers of the site.

To have your photo next to your comment please signup your email address with Gravatar.

Your email is never published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Please complete the name of this site, Liberal Democrat ...?

Advert

Recent Comments

  • Tim Leunig
    The EU has been pretty clear that we could join the customs union - not sure they would be so keen to have us in the single market. Baby steps to rebuild trust ...
  • Tim Leunig
    "The cost of living is spiralling, wages are stagnant" - not so, average pay rises have been higher than inflation for over a year now - https://www.ons.gov.uk/...
  • Tim Rogers
    Jenny Barnes. Trouble is millions of people understand simple answers and vote for it....
  • Mick Taylor
    Mark Frankel is always 110% on the side of Netanyahu and the Israeli state, but his comments are not wholly wrong. I do feel angry that far too many people try ...
  • Steve Trevethan
    Might it be appropriate to promote whole nation-beneficial policies and their marketing, rather than concentrate on attacking other parties? Might it help to...