Labour’s Hypocrisy on Election Funds
Andrew Pierce in today’s Daily Telegraph shows how hypocritical Labour are on election funding. It turns out the unions gave Labour a whopping £10 million at the last election, and, guess what, they also targeted marginal seats. The unions, of course, claim that all of this is above board, because their members can opt out of the political fund. There are two problems with this. First, a friend of mine who applied to the TGWU recently was sent all the application forms, but not the opt-out form. He had to ask specifically for it, and it certainly looks like an old post card that hasn’t seen the light of day for many years! Second, of course, you have no say at all on how the “political fund” is used - and it is only used to support Labour. I hope the next Conservative government will conduct an urgent review into how trade unions are letting their members get involved in the political funds they control.
Graeme Archer said on November 5th, 2007 at 5:20 pm:
… or, just cap the union donation to 50 grand like our proposal for all such donations. I’d rather that than we start fussing about with legislation about how unions organise themselves. To be honest, if someone wants to join a union, I think it’s up to them to sort out how it organises its finances, not a job for the govt. Good lord I sound like some sort of small govt nutter. But you know what I mean.
Tizzy said on November 8th, 2007 at 2:06 am:
Labour is hypocritcal - that’s news?
The issue of trade unions funding Labour is important. When the Tories used to bag the big bucks from businesses I suppose they were a balance, but that has changed since 1997. So many big businesses now seem to follow the Murdoch blueprint, splitting their donations and ‘influencing’ mega-contracts.
I do hope the next Tory gvt will be a bit more discerning when it comes to helping their League of Friends.
Votedave said on November 8th, 2007 at 9:16 pm:
Gordon Brown is trying to fix the next election - no doubt if Lord Ashcroft joined Labour (heaven forbid) he would welcome huge donations with open arms.