Thank You
The Electoral Commission has just published a list of all the second 1/4 of 2007 donors to the Labour Party. People and organisations gave nearly £5m. I think that is cause for celebration. Their donations pay for Labour to keep organisers in the field, fund our internal democracy, run campaigns and publicise our message.
Peter Kenyon is sniffy about large donations. I don't quite understand why. For me the priority is that there is a level playing field financially between Labour and the Tories. If very rich people want to give a donation to the party fighting for a more equal society that is proportionate to their income, surely that's something to be welcomed? Would Peter rather they spent their spare cash on an extra yacht? Would it be preferable for a millionaire Labour supporter to give a spare million quid to their kids' trust funds or use it to fund the salaries for a year of more than 20 full-time organisers in marginal seats, which might in turn help ensure we get re-elected and the minimum wage carries on going up?
Small donors are vital too and often give a greater percentage of their income than the bigger donors, but it's absurd to think we could easily find an extra 10,000 £100 donors to replace each £1m donor whose money Peter seems to be worried by.
Anyway unlike Peter I want to express my gratitude as a Labour supporter to everyone who gives any money or time to the Labour cause, however large or small an amount, and particularly to these people and organisations listed as the biggest Q2 donors:
TGWU - £664k
Amicus - £506k
Mahmoud Khayami - £500k
UNISON - £362k
Muslim Friends of Labour - £300k
Nigel Doughty - £250k
Ronald Cohen - £250k
Jon Aisbitt - £250k
USDAW - £234k
CWU - £203k
(in the case of the unions listed they actually donated more as they gave a lot of smaller donations to individual CLPs too).
posted by Luke Akehurst at 8:28 pm
3 Comments:
"If very rich people want to give a donation to the party fighting for a more equal society that is proportionate to their income, surely that's something to be welcomed?"
Hang on, I thought that the line was that we just oppose absolute poverty?
8:29 pm, August 22, 2007
I don't entirely disagree as the current system stands, but we would all benefit from downsizing and a reduction in expenditure.
And whilst Labour has a majority that means doing something about Ashworth's tactics of flooding undeclared localised donations in marginals, quite legally
1:59 am, August 24, 2007
the CWU gave 203K - maybe this is part of the reason why they have been paying no strike-pay in their (ongoing) dispute (WITH THE GOVERNMENT!!).
my TU unison have been in dispute with the government too, over pensions. no sooner has that issue been 'resolved', ie local government workers all pay more for worse pensions than we are soon ballotting over the government-led pay-freeze (2% offer, though in Birmingham we have had NO PAY RISE at all this year since april - not even a miserly 2% which is actually a pay-CUT).
Please don't put me down as one of those that are for the ending of the link immediately; rather, i have just applied to join Labour again, as i reckon that's as good a place as any to oppose the capitalists' offensive: if that Dave Ward, dep.GS of CWU hadn't resigned his seat on the LP NEC, he'd be in a much better position now to fight for the demands of the cwu postal workers that he 'represents'
9:14 am, August 24, 2007
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