New figures from the Electoral Commission show that political parties reported £17.09 million in donations and public funds in the second quarter of the year. That is up 51% on the £11.35 million in Q2 2025, but down 30% on the £24.51 million in Q1 2026…
Entrepreneur Ben Delo alone gave Reform £4 million in two donations. The Tories raked in £4.04 million, £1.23 million of which was public funds (Short Money and similar). Labour donors Sainsbury, Lubner, and Mosawi gave £550,000 to £650,000 each with £238,625 from Unite. Restore Britain posted £250,000, all from Cade Hill Investments, outraising the Greens and Plaid…
The Electoral Commission has published the full accounts of all parties for 2025. Here are the results for membership and donation income, compared with (election year) 2024.
A predictable collapse in donations for Labour, a surge for Reform, and a decline for the Tories. All to play for heading towards the next election – it’s donations season…
The Electoral Commission has published its party donation data for Q4 2025. Reform dominated at £5,456,000 entirely in private donations, largely thanks to crypto investor Christopher Harborne handing the party a massive £3 million in November. The Tories, by comparison, took a total of £4,016,181, but only £2,401,452 of that was private donations while £1,614,729 came from public funds. Over 40% of their total….
Labour received a total of £1,975,660. The LibDems actually beat them, taking in a grand total of £2,063,312, albeit with £749,173 coming from public cash…
Read the full data below:
Continue reading “Reform Rakes in £5.4 Million as Crypto Boost Leaves Tories Trailing”
The Electoral Commission has fired a warning shot at Labour after the government after it wrote to 63 councils asking them if they wanted to delay their local elections for another year. 9 million people without a vote…
The quango said today:
“We are disappointed by both the timing and substance of the statement. Scheduled elections should as a rule go ahead as planned, and only be postponed in exceptional circumstances. We are concerned by the possibility of some council elections in May being postponed, and even more by any further postponement to those which already had been deferred from 2025…
As a matter of principle, we do not think that capacity constraints are a legitimate reason for delaying long planned elections. Extending existing mandates risks affecting the legitimacy of local decision making and damaging public confidence. There is a clear conflict of interest in asking existing Councils to decide how long it will be before they are answerable to voters.”
Again – imagine if a right-of-centre government tried to do this…
The Electoral Commission’s explanation for letting off McSweeney is as follows:
“Under schedule 19B, paragraph 13(3) PPERA, a person who knowingly or recklessly provides false information in purported compliance with a requirement imposed under or by virtue of this Schedule, commits an offence.
We encourage all regulated entities to engage with us in an open and transparent manner, including during our investigation processes. This offence only applies where we have used our investigatory powers under Schedule 19B PPERA. Our investigation was conducted on a voluntary basis. This means we did not make use of these powers to compel compliance with any requirement imposed under or by virtue of Schedule 19B PPERA, including the use of any type of disclosure or investigation notice to compel information and explanation.”
So because the Electoral Commission was performing an ad hoc review there was no possibility of an offence for providing false information knowingly. Wonder who decided to go that way…
UPDATE: Kevin Hollinrake MP, Conservative Party Chairman, said:
“The Electoral Commission’s decision not to investigate McSweeney is wrong. The Commission must now publish all of their Morgan McSweeney Files to ensure the public has full transparency. It is clear that Morgan McSweeney deceived the Electoral Commission, but has dodged a criminal offence on a technicality. This loophole won’t wash. This is not over, we will continue to reveal more evidence, and continue to push for a full investigation by the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner into Keir Starmer.”
Kemi Badenoch has written in ConHome today announcing a review into the local elections results ten days ago, which saw the Tories lose 674 seats. After saying she is “deeply sorry to all the excellent Conservative councillors” she said the review will examine:
“The activities undertaken by the Party at both local and national level, our performance in the various geographical areas of the country, the involvement of the different stakeholders that comprise the Conservative Party family, such as the Professional, Voluntary and Parliamentary elements, and the ‘Candidate Journey’ – from recruitment and selection to declaration of results.”
Co-chairman Nigel Huddleston, shadow communities secretary Kevin Hollinrake and shadow crime minister Matt Vickers will lead the review, set to be done by the end of June. Kemi goes on to promise that the Tories will “rise again”:
“But we’ve been here before, and we’ve always come back stronger. I still remember the bad set of local elections in May 2019, swiftly followed by the European elections later that month where we polled just under 9 per cent. It felt like our time in government was over. Yet Boris pulled out a historic majority that same year.”
Might be a lengthy post-mortem…
Asked by Lobby hacks about his past comments on Trump (“any UK politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now”) Burnham was blithe:
“Politicians say things throughout their career, but now the important thing is to focus on the moment you are in.”
Were it so easy…