Andy Burnham recently supported an even lower donations cap than previously reported, according to correspondence seen by the Guardian, as the row over next week’s elections bill escalates.
The prime minister wrote to a campaigner in May outlining his support for a £500,000 individual donations cap, which he said would “guard against the perception of any one party being unduly influenced or swayed by one person or organisation”.
In a follow-up email seen by the Guardian, Burnham went on to say he believed the cap should gradually be reduced – a proposal now being put forward by the Labour MP Stella Creasy.
Campaigners are accusing Burnham of a U-turn after the Guardian reported the prime minister had decided not to back the attempts by Creasy and others to introduce a donations cap in next week’s elections bill.
Andy Burnham has registered accepting £345,000 of donations over the past year including £164,347 from businessman Lord Sainsbury.
Less of a u turn, more of a lie with no genuine intent.
Not sure I follow your logic there. If I was a politician who hasn’t received £500000 total donations, I’d want to add a £500000 cap so my competition can’t either.
Burnham has presented this u turn on the £300k cap as pressure from unions, but the finances show that he received a pittance from all union members combined in the last year (£20k). He received nearly £325k from 6 individuals in the same period (including the £160k from Lord Sainsbury). The union angle is bollocks - it’s more likely that some of the 6 people that gave him £320k don’t want any caps at all, thank you very much. Suddenly he is no longer backing any caps at all, and blaming unions. Maybe my logic is flawed.
Yeah, that makes sense, the people giving massive individual donations probably do have opinions about this, wouldn’t surprise me if they’re laying on the pressure, kinda why we shouldn’t allow it.
I’m confused. £500k for individual donations is way more that £164 347. Is there something I’m missing here? Also, where did you get the £300k cap from?
It’s not about that specific £160k donation - its about keeping someone who has the means to donate £160k to a potential PM happy - £160k is peanuts - they might want to give £10million to an actual PM (or the next PM, or the PM after that). My only point is that Burnham pretended like he would stop massive individual donations to prevent cash for influence “if I get in to power” while he was taking massive individual donations. Now he is in power, he is blaming the unions for changing his mind and allowing massive individual donations to continue. He is just scapegoating unions (whose members collectively donated £20k between them in the last year) as the sole cause of him having to take the difficult decision NOT to support measures that would adversely affect him, and the tiny handful of people who actually gave him vast sums of money. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to see where this motivation might come from. It’s not the unions.
Thanks for the explanation. Tbh my feeling is that is largely doesn’t matter what the motivation for the u-turn is. The proposal was for anti corruption/anti pernicious influence reasons. Backing out of it without a clear alternative is a statement that those influences have worked on you. The unions should be as bothered by large donors as much as anyone else and failing to make that argument to them is either a failure of leadership or exactly what you suggest.