The Conservatives and Labour have amassed huge war chests for the election, funded by the rise of megadonors giving millions of pounds as individuals or through their companies. Over the past year, the Tories have significantly outdone Labour, bringing in £44m, while Labour have drawn £24.6m – excluding public funds. However, in the first quarter of this year, the fundraising was more evenly matched. The Conservatives brought in £8.48m, while Labour raised £7.38m – excluding public funds. The Lib Dems brought in £2.48m in donations during the quarter, and the Greens raised £400,000 but Reform UK, now led by Nigel Farage, got just £25,000 in that period. These are some of the biggest and most significant donors who will be bankrolling this summer’s election: *** Conservatives Two new megadonors Frank Hester and his company, TPP, are together the Conservatives’ biggest ever donor for an election campaign, giving £15m. The party has faced calls to give the money back after the Guardian revealed he made comments in 2019 saying looking at Diane Abbott made you “want to hate all Black women” and that she “should be shot”. Hester apologised for his remarks and for being rude but said he abhorred racism and his criticism “had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin”. The healthcare tech entrepreneur, who is worth an estimated £371m, according to the Sunday Times rich list, is sole owner of TPP. Mohamed Mansour was the first to give a £5m donation to the Tories before the election. The ex-minister in the government of Egypt’s former autocratic leader Hosni Mubarak is also a billionaire businessman behind the sprawling conglomerate Mansour Group, of which private investment company Man Capital forms a part.
Retailers Amit Lohia is nicknamed the Prince of Polyester on account of his family’s yarn business, Indorama, where he is a director. Lohia gave a first donation of £2m last year. Bobby Arora is a British billionaire and retail director of B&M, who gave £250,000 to the Conservatives last December. Richard Harpin, the founder of repairs business Homeserve, has given about £2m since the last election, and recently lent his helicopter to Rishi Sunak during the campaign, while Sir Peter Wood, founder of Direct Line, gave £500,000 this year. Property developers Graham Edwards runs Telereal Trillium, one of the UK’s largest property firms, and is the party’s treasurer. He has contributed £3.5m since 2018, including a £2m donation last year. Others include Westcombe Homes, which has given £400,000 since the last election. Another firm, Thakeham Homes, gave almost £1m until 2022, but its founder, Rob Boughton, recently appeared at a Labour event saying he was now supporting Keir Starmer’s party. Entrepreneurs Christopher Wood is the founder of Medannex, a biopharmaceutical company that develops cancer and autoimmune disease treatments. Its website describes Wood as a “serial entrepreneur who has founded and managed a number of successful biotechnology companies”. He has given £2m to the Conservative party since the last election. Bassim Haidar is a Nigerian-born Lebanese-Irish national IT billionaire who recently said he was leaving London over the non-dom tax changes, and gave £500,000 to the party across this year and last year. Selva Pankaj, who owns the higher education institution Regent College London and sponsored last year’s “blue room” for Tory VIPs at the party conference, has given more than £750,000 to the Conservatives since 2015. He told the Financial Times this week that he was currently donating £250,000 a year regardless: “Whether it rains, or if the sun is shining, I’m a steady Eddie.” Financiers The scale and pace of hedge fund and banking donations appears to have dropped off in recent years. But Alan Howard, co-founder of Brevan Howard Asset Management, made a £1m donation in May 2023, having funded the party since 2018. Sir Henry Angest is the banker behind Flowidea, which has given more than £750,000 since the last election, while Michael Hintze is a hedge fund figure who has contributed millions over the years and £600,000 since the last election. More recently, Lord Hintze has been giving smaller sums to sponsor the campaigns of individual MPs. *** Labour The Sainsbury dynasty David Sainsbury, a Labour peer since 1997 and scion of the supermarket dynasty, has given £5m to Labour under Keir Starmer. He previously donated to Labour under Tony Blair and served as a science minister, before contributing £8m to the Lib Dems during the Jeremy Corbyn era. Lord Sainsbury’s daughter, Fran Perrin, is also a major Labour donor in her own right, giving more than £2m to the party under Starmer’s leadership, including £1m this year. Trade unions Labour still generates substantial income from trade unions, bringing in almost £7m from them so far in 2024 and 2023. Unite, the GMB and Unison all contribute about £1m a year each, making them major sources of funding. Big business donors Gary Lubner, the former boss of Autoglass, the car glass repair company, has given almost £6m to the party under Starmer. He told the FT that he had wanted to put the party in power for a long time. Born in South Africa, he has said his political views had been shaped by being conscripted into the police during apartheid, and his grandparents having come to South Africa to escape Jewish pogroms in Russia. Dale Vince, the founder of gas and electricity supplier Ecotricity, has given at least £4m to the party through his company since 2014 – including £1.6m this year. The donations have caused Labour some controversy, as he has also bankrolled Just Stop Oil in recent years, triggering a Tory attack on the party for being funded by an “eco zealot”. City figures Martin Taylor is a hedge fund supremo who has contributed almost £5m in donations over the last decade to Labour, the thinktank Labour Together, and individual MPs. His most recent donation this year was £535,000. Sir Victor Blank, the former chair of Lloyds TSB, has resumed making donations, giving £175,000 since 2020, much of which was used to fund staff for the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Sir Trevor Chinn has been continuously donating tranches of money since 2010, giving £1m in total since then. Stuart Roden, best known for his time as chair of Lansdowne Partners, has given more than £360,000 to the party last year. Media and art world Waheed Alli, who made his money in TV production and is a Labour peer, has led the party’s fundraising efforts under Starmer. He has given £700,000 to the party over the years, including about £250,000 since the last election. A donor who has started giving again is Grayson Perry, the artist and television presenter, who has given £180,000. He previously donated to the party under Ed Miliband. Transilluminate, a company owned by artist Brian Clarke, has also given £250,000 this year.