{"id":12421,"date":"2017-05-19T16:14:50","date_gmt":"2017-05-19T15:14:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=12421"},"modified":"2017-05-19T16:30:41","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T15:30:41","slug":"raking-it-in-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=12421","title":{"rendered":"Raking it in"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Among the Tory party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top wealthy donors is a businessman who has been interviewed under caution by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over corruption, money laundering and bribery.<\/p>\n

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The latest official data shows that Petrofac chief executive Ayman Asfari gave a \u00c2\u014150,000 donation to the Conservative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s election campaign just days before the Guardian<\/em> found<\/a> that he had been interviewed by the SFO.<\/p>\n

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Asfari\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wife Sawson also donated \u00c2\u014150,000, bringing the total that the couple have donated to the Tories over the years to more than \u00c2\u0141800,000.<\/p>\n

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Asfari is also part of the Leader\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Group, an elite Tory donor club which gives members who donate at least \u00c2\u014150,000 a year a chance to have dinner with the prime minister and others in the party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inner sanctum.<\/p>\n

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The latest data shows that in the first week of the general election campaign, the Tory party received just over \u00c2\u01414m in donations, with wealthy donors making large donations accounting for the bulk of contributions.<\/p>\n

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Addison Lee founder John Griffin is the most generous donor to the party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s general election campaign, handing out\u00c2\u00a0 a shocking \u00c2\u0141900,000, followed by hedge fund Egerton Capital founder John Armitage, donating \u00c2\u0141400,000, and the CEO of another hedge fund Caxton Associates, Andrew Law, donating \u00c2\u0141250,000.<\/p>\n

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In total, the Tory party has so far raised nearly double the amount that Labour has, raking in \u00c2\u01414.1m in the first week of the general election campaign, compared to Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00c2\u01412.7m.<\/p>\n

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Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s funding, on the other hand, is made up of hundreds of thousands of small donations from working people. Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s contribution, \u00c2\u01412.4m, comes from union members who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve opted into the union\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s political fund. The Labour party has said that it has also previously raised \u00c2\u01411m from small, individual donations.<\/p>\n

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Rich list<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The latest data of donations in the first week of the general election comes on the heels of an analysis<\/a> which found that more than a third of those on the Sunday Times Rich List \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a list of the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 100 wealthiest people \u00e2\u20ac\u201c have donated to the Tory party.<\/p>\n

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A full 35 of those who made the Rich List collectively gave \u00c2\u014119m to the party since 2001. This group of 35 has a net worth of \u00c2\u0141123bn.<\/p>\n

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Labour\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Andrew Gwynne said that the newspaper Rich List \u00e2\u20ac\u015breads like a who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s who of Tory donors; a damning indictment of Theresa May\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rhetoric of a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098country that works for everyone\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThat so many of the top 100 have donated so much to the Tories, shows you that they really are the party of and for a privileged few, not the many,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWhile the Tories have been going cap in hand to the country\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wealthiest tycoons, they have slashed taxes for those at the very top and raised taxes for working people.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWorking people deserve better than Tory failure. Only a Labour government will stand up for you and your families.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner agreed.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bJust a brief look at the Tories\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 donors list demonstrates the narrow corporate interests the party is beholden to \u00e2\u20ac\u201c hedge funds and other business fat cats, one of whom has even been interviewed over possible corruption and money laundering.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is no coincidence that a full third of the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s richest people are gladly donating to the Tory party \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they flock to the party that aims to undermine working people and trade union rights while creating a post-Brexit fire sale with bargain basement Britain slashing corporation tax while ensuring ever greater concentrations of wealth and opportunity accrue only to the few,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bLabour, on the other hand, is being supported by hundreds of thousands of trade union members and ordinary men and women, young and old, who are desperate to see an end to the misery and poverty of a failed economy, cuts and privitisation of our national assets,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Turner went on to say. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bLabour is standing up for the many not the few, creating that fairer, more equal society we can be proud of once again.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Among the Tory party\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top wealthy donors is a businessman who has been interviewed under caution by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) over corruption, money laundering and bribery.   The latest official data shows that Petrofac chief executive Ayman Asfari gave a \u00c2\u014150,000 donation to the Conservative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s election campaign just days before the Guardian found […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9611,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[102,727,44],"wps_subtitle":"The fat cats that just keep giving to Tories","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12421"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12421"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12422,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12421\/revisions\/12422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}