Party donations: Labour receives £3 million from unions this year

It’s time to find out which parties are in the money, thanks to the latest Electoral Commission information on party donations. According to the figures for Q1 2014, the Tories have received £6.7 million in donations (up from £3.7 million in Q1 2013) and Labour £4.4 million (compared with £3.7 million last year). It’s not surprising that donations are up because we’ve entered an important election season. Most of the donors are not new, so here are the top five donations to the Conservative party in 2014 so far, compared with last year:

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1. Michael Hintze: £1.5 million
2. James Lupton: £258k
3. Michael Farmer: £258k
4. Alexander Fraser: £200k
5. David Lilley: £200k

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And the top five donors to the Labour party in 2014:

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1. Unite the Union: £1.8 million
2. Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers: £692k
3. Unison: £420k
4. Communication Workers Union – £142k
5. Andrew Rosenfeld – £100k

The other parties received plenty of cash too — the Lib Dems brought in £1.1