Donations to the Tories surge in the third quarter

Here is what the Electoral Commission reported UK political parties received in Q32023:

The Tories reported that they'd received a bequest of £10 million from John Sainsbury's will, which bumped their donations up.

But even excluding the £10 million, they're attracting a healthy amount of donations. In fact they're attracting as much as they did in the lead up to the 2019 general election.

In 2019 of course, businesses and high net worth individuals feared a hard left Corbyn government and were desperate for the Tories to win.

This time round, Starmer is supposed to have sorted out Labour's problems, and Labour leads the Tories in the polls by 10 to 15 points. You would think money would flow to the supposed "winners".

But the donations are telling a different story.

It boils down to this: Rishi Sunak is a known quantity. He did the unpopular thing in the Tory leadership contest and argued against borrowing at a time of high inflation - and was proved right. He clearly understands macro-economics.

He's also more business friendly than Boris was. Hence the business expencing reforms in the budget.

Starmer by contrast is a blackbox. No-one knows what he believes. Was he lying during the Labour leadership contest when he espoused hard left policies? Or is he lying now? Or does he just blow with the prevailing wind, and will change his mind many times again?

It's making people uneasy enough that they're putting their hands in their pockets and are donating cold hard cash to the Tories.