Yes, the Conservative Party, which has always had a striking aversion to raising funds in the country that it aspires to govern, is heavily dependent on Vladimir Putin's courtiers and their consorts. That is before we even mention the Middle East.
But in order to make up any loss of union funding on account, so to speak, of certain constitutional changes that the unions ought in fact to use to their own considerable advantage, the Labour Party cheerfully takes oodles of lucre from Tony Blair.
"Ah," I hear you cry, "but Blair does not make a penny from his work as a de facto member of the military regime in Egypt." Indeed, he does not. Or, at least, not directly.
But he is handsomely remunerated for his work on behalf of the dictatorships of Central Asia. That is where his money comes from, everyone knows this, and Labour, in that full knowledge, takes that money.
Anything, absolutely anything at all, other than the purely voluntary contributions (anyone who is paying unwittingly cannot read a simple form) of millions of working and thus tax-paying Britons right here in the United Kingdom.
Couldn't agree more.
ReplyDeleteBut, of course, the real problem was pointed out by Peter Hitchens years ago.
Neither of the parties can get a penny from ordinary people.
If you wish to test that theory, send the red and blue rosettes out by the thousand with collection tins marked "Labour" and "Tory".
Leave them out all year. And see what they come back with.
We all know the answer.
That's why they're dependent on Paul Flowers, Bernie Ecclestone, and (as you say) Tony Blair and Russian oligarchs.
If they made the union members"opt-in" to paying for the privelege of having a Labour Party, as Len Mcluskey says, they'd be lucky to get 5%.
No, all of Labour's money from the unions is made up of small voluntary contributions by ordinary people. Every penny.
DeleteThe Conservatives, by contrast, have never so much as tried to raise funds even from among their own voters. Until the last Labour Government tightened up the rules, they were kept afloat by scores of overseas accounts taking cash from rich people who had in many cases never visited Britain.
Now those same people have London-registered companies through which they are still at it. While millions of bus drivers and cleaning ladies freely pay a few quid each to have a Labour Party. It ought to be proud. But it isn't.