Lib Dems court tax avoidance specialists for donations

Bustin some moves at the Ministry

Yesterday we did some analysis of Labour and the Conservatives' donations and loans, now it's the turn of the Lib Dems.

Despite the terminal decline of the Lib Dems, they still managed to attract over £4.4m in donations.  The Lib Dems are the least indebted of the three old parties with a mere £1.5m of debts.

Lender Type	Amount	Percent
Bank	£1,137,000	76.9%
Person	£310,615	21%
Company	£15,000	1%
Lobbyist	£15,000	1%

Most of the Lib Dems' debts is owed to banks but they do have a £15k loan from the taxpayer-funded World Bank-backed global warming lobbyists, Yeovil Climate Investment Fund.  The company that loaned them £15k is Smith & Williamson Investment Management, an investment management company that specialises in tax avoidance which the Lib Dems rank just above drowning puppies on its evilness scale.

Here is a breakdown of the Lib Dems' donations from the 2011/12 financial year:

Lender Type	Amount	Percent
Person	£1,364,286	30.9%
Company	£1,107,965	25.1%
Party Association	£1,096,970	24.8%
Taxpayer	£505,148	11.4%
Branch	£304,628	6.9%
Lobbyist	£30,213	0.7%
Trust	£10,000	0.2%

It seems the Lib Dems are even better than the Tories at running commercial operations to top up their funds - they received almost £1.1m in donations from commercial activities, almost a quarter of their income.  They also received over half a million from taxpayer.

Branches donated over £300k and left wing lobbyists Joseph Rowntree Trust (a "charity") donated over £30k.  Huntingdon Trust donated £10k - there is no information available about this trust so we have been unable to determine whether it is just another commercial operation like all the other trusts that have donated money to the Lib Dems during this period.

Tory donor Sir Pervez Anwar has been hedging his bets, donating £5,000 to the Lib Dems through his company, Bestway.  The Ministry of Sound has been extremely generous, making 25 donations totalling almost £366k in 12 months.  Almost every other company that donated money to the Lib Dems are accountants and investment management companies specialising in tax avoidance.

Big business dominates Tory donor list

Following our earlier analysis of the Labour Party's income for the 2011/12 financial year, here is what we've found in the Conservatives' accounts.

First the loans and as you'd expect, absolutely nothing from the unions but there is money from foreign companies, including one based in a tax haven.

Lender Type	Amount	Percent
Bank	£8,356,792	65.2%
Company	£2,976,619	23.2%
Foreign Company	£950,000	7.4%
Person	£263,839	2.1%
Tax Haven Company	£250,000	1.9%
School	£21,609	0.2%
Party Association	£5,000	0.0%

The tax haven company is Juniper Trading Equities which is based in the British Virgin Islands and loaned the Tories £250k.  The other foreign company is Medina Foundation which is based in the US and loaned them £950k.  Woodlands Schools, a group of private schools, loaned the Tories £21,609.

Party associations - unincorporated associations set up for the benefit of promoting and raising funds for the party - loaned the party a trifling £5,000 whilst individuals accounted for £264k of loans.  Banks and companies made up the bulk of the Tories' loans with £8.36m and £2.98m respectively, or 88.4% of loans.

Donor Type	Amount	Percent
Person	£8,576,494	57.7%
Company	£4,090,587	27.5%
Party Association	£1,292,16	8.7%
Taxpayer	£497,957	3.3%
Lobbyist	£275,900	1.9%
Branch	£90,904	0.6%
School	£18,000	0.1%
Trust	£17,250	0.1%
Bank	£9,747	0.1%

The Tories get much less of their donations from the taxpayer - 3.3% compared to 33.3% - than Labour but they do take more from lobbyists and businesses.  Much more from businesses but still nowhere near the amount of taxpayers money laundered through the unions to Labour.  Donations from party associations are interesting - almost £1.3m was raised by commercial ventures set up solely for the purposes of promoting and funding the Conservative Party.

The Arbuthnot Banking Group donated £84,300 through its bank and subsidiary, Flowidea and loaned the Tories a whopping £5m in 2009 which is still outstanding.  The loan attracts interest at 3% above base which  will be attracting something in the region of £25k per year in interest.  That buys a whole lot of influence for Chairman, Henry Angest who already has direct influence at Westminster through Arbuthnot Latham & Co which is an Accepting House and has a seat on a Treasury/Bank of England policy committee.

Bestway Cash & Carry has been very generous, donating £77,950 to the Tories in the 2011/12 financial year.  Chairman of Bestway, Sir Pervez Anwar, also owns the second largest bank in Pakistan whose UK operation is one of the biggest providers of Islamic banking in the UK.  Lord Ashcroft hasn't been quite as generous but still retains his top spot on the Tory donors list helped along by his trifling £36,500 in donations.

Scottish special interest lobbyists donated £267,900 - a disproportionately large percentage of the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party's income and goes some way to explaining why Scottish interests are so disproportionately high on David Cameron's agenda.  Whilst only one tenth of the amount received by Labour, the Tories received a not inconsiderable half a million from the taxpayer which weighed in at 3.3% of their donations for the 2011/12 financial year.