Five things you need to know about the latest political donations report

£20 million — that’s how much money was donated to the political parties in the last quarter of 2014. The Electoral Commission has released their latest report on political donations and unsurprisingly given the election campaign, more money is being thrown about. Over £5 million more was donated in Q4 last year compared to Q3. Above you can see the top ten donors to all parties during that period. Here are five things you need to know about the report.

1. Labour is still bankrolled by the unions…and PWC

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Labour’s reliance on donations from the big trade unions continues. Unison, Unite and GMB all donated over £1 million to Labour while USDAW put £417k into their coffers. Naturally, this has given the Tories an opportunity to hit out at Labour’s reliance on unions. Chairman Grant Shapps said in a statement:

‘Ed Miliband is utterly reliant on the trade unions to bail out his failing leadership, writing seven figure cheques in exchange for writing the manifesto.