How serious is Miliband?

The Tories reckon that Ed Miliband’s proposed donation cap of £5,000 is a con that will hit their funding every year, while preserving Labour’s funds except at election time thanks to the union levy being exempt. Housing minister and regular attack-dog Grant Shapps laid out the party’s position on Andrew Neil’s BBC Sunday Politics show earlier today. Here is the transcript of their exchange:

Shapps
: Well I watched the interview and I thought this sounds big and important, so to a quick look afterwards and discovered that of the £10m Labour got from the unions last year, they still get 9.9 million of it, so this is a complete wheeze, one of the most disingenuous interviews I think I’ve seen all year.”

Andrew Neil
: Really? Well let’s just have a look at the funding figures for 2010.  There they are up on the screen here.  Here’s Labour Party funding in an election year which makes it interesting.