I’m confused. £500k for individual donations is way more that £164 347. Is there something I’m missing here? Also, where did you get the £300k cap from?
Comment on Burnham accused of U-turn after initially backing political donations cap to fall below £500k
Arola@sh.itjust.works 1 day agoBurnham has presented this u turn on the £300k cap as pressure from unions, but the finances show that he received a pittance from all union members combined in the last year (£20k). He received nearly £325k from 6 individuals in the same period (including the £160k from Lord Sainsbury). The union angle is bollocks - it’s more likely that some of the 6 people that gave him £320k don’t want any caps at all, thank you very much. Suddenly he is no longer backing any caps at all, and blaming unions. Maybe my logic is flawed.
TheUnicornOfPerfidy@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Arola@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
It’s not about that specific £160k donation - its about keeping someone who has the means to donate £160k to a potential PM happy - £160k is peanuts - they might want to give £10million to an actual PM (or the next PM, or the PM after that). My only point is that Burnham pretended like he would stop massive individual donations to prevent cash for influence “if I get in to power” while he was taking massive individual donations. Now he is in power, he is blaming the unions for changing his mind and allowing massive individual donations to continue. He is just scapegoating unions (whose members collectively donated £20k between them in the last year) as the sole cause of him having to take the difficult decision NOT to support measures that would adversely affect him, and the tiny handful of people who actually gave him vast sums of money. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see where this motivation might come from. It’s not the unions.
TheUnicornOfPerfidy@feddit.uk 22 hours ago
Thanks for the explanation. Tbh my feeling is that is largely doesn’t matter what the motivation for the u-turn is. The proposal was for anti corruption/anti pernicious influence reasons. Backing out of it without a clear alternative is a statement that those influences have worked on you. The unions should be as bothered by large donors as much as anyone else and failing to make that argument to them is either a failure of leadership or exactly what you suggest.
scratchee@feddit.uk 1 day ago
Yeah, that makes sense, the people giving massive individual donations probably do have opinions about this, wouldn’t surprise me if they’re laying on the pressure, kinda why we shouldn’t allow it.