{"id":13115,"date":"2017-08-25T14:50:23","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T13:50:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=13115"},"modified":"2017-08-25T15:25:28","modified_gmt":"2017-08-25T14:25:28","slug":"beholden-fat-cats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=13115","title":{"rendered":"Beholden to fat cats"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Tory donors gave the Conservative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00c2\u014125m \u00e2\u20ac\u201c more than double the \u00c2\u01419.5m Labour received \u00e2\u20ac\u201c before this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s general election and the party still lost 13 MPs.<\/p>\n

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Donor lists released by the Electoral Commission<\/a> show the Conservative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s election war-chest was bolstered by huge donations from corporate and big business figures.<\/p>\n

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Despite the cash, the number of Tory seats fell from 331 to 318, meaning the Conservatives spent around \u00c2\u01412m for every MP they lost. Meanwhile Labour, with a significantly smaller election fund, gained 31 seats.<\/p>\n

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A number of Tory donors and their firms have been fined, or are being investigated by the authorities, for wrong doing.<\/p>\n

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Malcolm Healy<\/a> donated \u00c2\u0141100,000 and was fined by HMRC in 2015 for making \u00c2\u01418.6m in a tax avoidance scheme.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Investigation <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Ayman and Sawsan Asfari gave \u00c2\u0141100,000. Ayman has been questioned by the Serious Fraud Office as part of an investigation<\/a> into the Petrofac oil firm.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Rainy City Investments, owned by brothers Fred and Peter Done, also donated \u00c2\u0141100,000. In 2016, gambling firm Betfred, which Fred Done<\/a> retains \u00e2\u20ac\u015bsignificant control\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 over, was fined a record \u00c2\u0141800,000 because it \u00e2\u20ac\u015bdid not adhere to money laundering regulations\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

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The biggest donation to the Tory party came from JCB, which gave \u00c2\u01411.5m. Mark Bamford, brother of the construction vehicle manufacturer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chairman Lord Bamford, also forked out \u00c2\u0141750,000.<\/p>\n

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Hedge fund manager John Armitage gave the Tories \u00c2\u01411.1m, while Addison Lee taxi firm founder John Griffin donated \u00c2\u01411.033m.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In total, the Conservatives received \u00c2\u014124,840,627 during the three-month period to June. Labour received \u00c2\u01419,492,519, much of which was donated by trade unions representing the interests of working people.<\/p>\n

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

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey flock to the party that aims to undermine working people and trade union rights while ensuring ever greater concentrations of wealth and opportunity accrue only to the few.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Turner added, \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 privatisation of our national assets.<\/p>\n

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\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":"

Tory donors gave the Conservative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00c2\u014125m \u00e2\u20ac\u201c more than double the \u00c2\u01419.5m Labour received \u00e2\u20ac\u201c before this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s general election and the party still lost 13 MPs.   Donor lists released by the Electoral Commission show the Conservative\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s election war-chest was bolstered by huge donations from corporate and big business figures.   Despite the cash, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9747,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[44,266],"wps_subtitle":"Tory donors give over twice what Labour receives","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13115"}],"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=13115"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13116,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13115\/revisions\/13116"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}