Category Archives: Party funding

Tory chair refuses to say whether party took further £5m from Frank Hester

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Richard Holden says Hester apologised for remarks about Diane Abbott and ‘we should accept that’

The Conservative party chair, Richard Holden, has four times refused to say whether the party continues to take millions from its biggest donor, Frank Hester, after it was revealed the businessman had made comments condemned as racist and misogynistic.

Holden said he could not comment on whether the Tories had recently accepted £5m, after it emerged that Hester told colleagues in 2019 that looking at Diane Abbott made you “want to hate all black women” and said she “should be shot”.

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Businessman who donated £5m to Tories gets knighthood

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Mohamed Mansour, a Conservative senior treasurer, is one of several surprise recipients of honours

A businessman and former Egyptian government minister who donated £5m to the Conservative party last year has unexpectedly been given a knighthood on the recommendation of Rishi Sunak.

Mohamed Mansour, a senior treasurer of the Conservative party for just over a year, was one of several surprise recipients of honours on Thursday, with the citation saying it was given for business, charity and political service.

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Tory donor Frank Hester raised complaint about NHS contract with health secretary

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Exclusive: Man who has now given party at least £10m copied Steve Barclay into email about problems with bid, documents show

The Conservative mega-donor Frank Hester complained to the NHS and the health secretary last year over problems his IT business had bidding for a contract, documents show.

The Leeds businessman, who owns a healthcare tech firm responsible for 60m UK medical records, raised a complaint about procurement in December 2022 with the chair of NHS England, copying in Steve Barclay, the then health secretary, saying he was an “interested party”.

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Biggest Tory donor said looking at Diane Abbott makes you ‘want to hate all black women’

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Exclusive: Remarks by Frank Hester, who has given £10m to the party in the past year, raise questions over his workplace behaviour

The Conservative party’s biggest donor told colleagues that looking at Diane Abbott makes you “want to hate all black women” and said the MP “should be shot”, the Guardian can reveal.

Frank Hester, who has given £10m to the Tories in the past year, said in the meeting that he did not hate all black women. But he said that seeing Abbott, who is Britain’s longest-serving black MP, on TV meant “you just want to hate all black women because she’s there”.

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Tory donors deny funding poll for group working to oust Sunak

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Donors close to Boris Johnson and hedge fund boss behind GB News say they had no involvement in polling

Conservative donors have been rushing to deny funding polling for a group working to oust Rishi Sunak, as David Frost was warned he could lose the whip if rival party backers were involved.

Senior Tory figures are scrambling to figure out the mystery donors behind the Conservative Britain Alliance, which funded a £40,000 poll, fronted by Lord Frost in the Telegraph, that predicted a Labour landslide.

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Tory donor’s firm paid for Sunak’s £16,000 one-way helicopter trip to Leeds

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Journey was paid for by The Phoenix Partnership, which has won £135m of contracts from NHS and government

Rishi Sunak took a £16,000 one-way trip to Leeds on a helicopter courtesy of a firm owned by Frank Hester, the Tory megadonor, taking the total for the prime minister’s donor-funded air travel to more than £100,000 this year.

The prime minister once again showed his fondness for short-haul air travel as he took a helicopter from Battersea to Leeds Bradford airport last month – a journey of about 90 minutes. The quickest train from London to Leeds takes about 2 hours and 13 minutes, and costs in the region of £60 off-peak.

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Tory donors from JCB empire could face £500m bill to settle tax inquiry

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Exclusive: HMRC investigation into peer Anthony Bamford and his brother focuses on offshore trusts that own business empire

The influential Tory donors behind the JCB digger empire could be hit with a bill for more than £500m to settle a longrunning investigation by HM Revenue and Customs, the Guardian can reveal.

The investigation into Anthony Bamford, a Tory peer, and his brother Mark, the director of a subsidiary of the Conservative party, is understood to span a complex network of offshore tax havens and companies.

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Tory donor issued with demolition order for hotel where Brexit deal signed

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Surinder Arora told to demolish all or part of Fairmont Windsor Park hotel where Northern Ireland deal was agreed

A multimillionaire businessman with close links to the Conservative party has been told to knock down part or all of a luxury hotel that hosted the signing of Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal because he breached planning regulations.

A planning enforcement notice issued by Runnymede borough council said Surinder Arora’s hotel company had until 7 October to take action at the Fairmont Windsor Park hotel near Windsor.

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Rishi Sunak changes declaration again over private jet travel expenses

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Questions continue to be raised about £38,500 for travel to Tory events, now declared to be from millionaire Akhil Tripathi

Rishi Sunak has changed his expenses declaration over the funding of private jet travel to Tory events after questions were raised about why they were recorded as coming from a small company linked to a multimillionaire businessman.

Sunak’s latest declaration now names the donor of £38,500 to pay for air travel by the prime minister and staff as Akhil Tripathi, a British-Indian medical tech entrepreneur who made a fortune from an anti-snoring device.

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Starmer put ‘on notice’ by Unite leader after vote to retain ties with Labour

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General secretary of union says party should not treat outcome as ‘blank cheque’ as rift remains with leadership

Keir Starmer has been put “on notice” by the leader of Britain’s biggest trade union, who said that its support should not be treated as a “blank cheque”.

Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, signalled a rift remained with the Labour leadership despite delegates voting to remain affiliated with the party.

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Former cabinet secretary urges Sunak to drop Covid inquiry legal challenge – live

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Lord Butler says there is ‘strong public interest in the inquiry being carried out constructively’

The North Sea oil and gas industry is in decline, the shadow business minister Seema Malhotra said, as she defended plans to block new drilling licences, a move criticised by trade unions. Aubrey Allegretti has the story here.

MPs will hold a debate on Monday on proposals to ban members from the parliamentary estate if they are being investigated for a criminal offence and are deemed to pose a risk to other people.

Last night the government was debating whether to hold a vote on Monday on proposals to ban MPs accused of violent or sexual offences from the estate — after backlash from some Tory backbenchers. One senior Tory MP told Playbook they opposed the plan because it would overturn “common practice that you are innocent until proven guilty”.

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Major Tory donor investigated over fraud and money laundering allegations

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Indian rice tycoon Karan Chanana, who gave the Conservatives more than £220,000, is under scrutiny by India’s finance ministry

A leading Tory donor who has given more than £220,000 to the party is being investigated over allegations of fraud and money laundering.

Karan Chanana, head of the global rice brand Amira, is being investigated in India over claims that tens of millions of pounds of bank loans were unlawfully diverted into shell entities. Chanana has not responded to the claims.

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Labour criticised for giving global banks access to parliament

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Exclusive: HSBC and NatWest staffers seconded to shadow business secretary Jonathan Reynolds’s team

Labour has been criticised for giving global banks access to parliament after taking an HSBC staffer into its shadow business team, despite the financial giant coming under fire over its links with China.

One senior policy manager from HSBC has been seconded to the team of Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, and has been given a parliamentary pass since February.

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Government defeats move to tighten UK foreign donations law

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Campaigners say defeat of amendment to close loopholes on party funding leaves UK open to ‘malign influences’

UK elections remain at risk from interference by hostile states after the government voted down a move to close loopholes on foreign donations to parties, campaigners have warned.

The chair of parliament’s security committee was among those who backed an amendment to the national security bill that would have obliged political parties to carry out due diligence on the true source of donations from companies and individuals.

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One in 10 Tory peers have given more than £100,000 to party

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Exclusive: 27 members of House of Lords have donated almost £50m in total to Conservatives

One in 10 Conservative peers are big donors to the party, giving almost £50m in total, new analysis shows, amid controversy over more financial backers believed to have been put forward on Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list.

After speculation about more donors due to get peerages within the coming weeks, figures compiled by the Guardian show 27 out of the party’s 274 peers have given more than £100,000 to the Conservatives.

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Labour demands names of guests at champagne event Kwarteng attended

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Drinks reception with wealthy Tory donors took place on same day the chancellor delivered mini-budget

Pressure is growing on the Tory party to provide a full list of attendees at a private champagne reception attended by the chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, hours after he delivered his mini-budget.

Anneliese Dodds, the Labour chair, has written to her Conservative counterpart, Jake Berry, calling on him to release a list of those in attendance and whether they pledged donations or paid a fee to be there.

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Labour party is ‘sticking two fingers up’ at working people, says Unite boss

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Head of party’s biggest union donor warns members feel ‘crushed’ and may vote not to pay millions to Starmer

Labour is becoming “irrelevant to workers” and it is now hard to justify handing the party millions in funding, the head of the party’s biggest union donor has warned.

In an interview with the Observer, Sharon Graham, the general secretary of Unite, said she felt Labour’s leadership was, in effect, “sticking two fingers up” at workers with its response to strike action and its abandonment of pledges to renationalise public utilities.

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City donations worth £15m raise concerns over influence on UK politics

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Total donated to parties by financial firms and individuals tied to the sector over two years, report says

Concerns have been raised over the City’s influence on Westminster, after a report found financial firms and individuals tied to the sector donated £15m to political parties and gave £2m to MPs during the pandemic.

The campaign group Positive Money tallied the gifts, expenses and donations handed to MPs, peers and their parties, as well as the value of income from politicians’ second jobs, saying it contributed to finance’s “oversized influence” on policymaking.

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Boris Johnson laughs off the Pandora papers as the super-rich’s cash rolls in

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Western politicians seem complacent about or complicit in the iniquity of hidden wealth

It was a classic TV doorstep. After doing the morning media round, Boris Johnson emerged from a booth and set off with his minders across the main hall of the Conservative party conference in Manchester. What was his reaction to the Pandora papers?

And would the Tories be giving back the money they had taken from certain donors?

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Boris Johnson furious as inquiry launched into ‘cash for curtains’

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Electoral Commission believes there are ‘reasonable grounds’ to suspect offences around renovation of 11 Downing Street

The Electoral Commission has launched an inquiry that has the potential to imperil Boris Johnson’s premiership as the “cash for curtains” row increasingly engulfed the prime minister.

With sweeping powers to call witnesses and refer matters to the police, the watchdog said its probe was necessary because it already believed there were “reasonable grounds” to suspect that payments for expensive renovations to Johnson’s Downing Street flat could constitute several offences.

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