Wednesday 5 August 2009

The Taxpayers Alliance and Tory funders

I noticed previously that a couple of the Taxpayers Alliance business supporters are at companies that make donations to the Conservative Party, so I thought I’d spend half an hour cross-referencing the names on their list with bodies making political donations.

In turns out that of the names on the list, 10% work at companies that have donated to the Tories. Below is data on company donations to the Tories taken from the Electoral Commission register.

* JCB (J C Bamford Excavators on the TPA list) - £416,000 in cash, £109,000 in non-cash donations
* Berkeley Burke - £52,000
* Huntsworth - £12,100
* Rocco Forte Ltd - £20,000
* Air Foyle - £26,500
* Caledonia Investments - £53,000
* Helical Bar - £22,000
* Leavesley Group/JT Leavesley - £5,750 (the director named also made personal donations)
* Sir Robert McAlpine - £22,500 (the director named also made personal donations)
* Harris & Sheldon - £91,000 (plus £5,000 to UKIP more recently)
* Savills - £2,000 non-cash donation
* Slough Estates - £106,000
* Dunalistair Estates - £6,900 in cash, £123,000 non-cash
* Midland Chilled Foods - £3,000
* Lowe & Fletcher - £19,000

Note I’ve only listed company donations – not those made by the named individual. When I have a bit of time I’ll go back for a trawl on the individuals. And for the sake of balance it should also be noted that one of those named on the list works for Tesco, which has donated to both Labour and the Lib Dems in recent years.

Also of relevance on the list is an organization called The Front Bench Club which is apparently a Conservative donor club. (There are also right-leaning think tanks/lobby groups like the Bow Group on there but they are not relevant in this instance).

Finally, excuse any errors I may have made in transcribing the data. If anyone spots any howlers please let me know and I will amend.

4 comments:

Paul E. said...

Where did you find this list Tom?

Tom Powdrill said...

it's on their website under the supporters section I think

Paul E. said...

Ah! I see. You've not got any data about how much the TPA get. Sorry - I misread the post.

I suppose hell will freeze over before the taxpayers alliance will let us know how much their donors give them. And we'll never know the answer to the big question about them - do their main supporters actually pay much tax at all in the first place.

Tom Powdrill said...

yeah I suspect there's some overlap but they definitely aren't keen on transparency themselves