£43m paid by elite group of donors for access to top Tories

An elite Tory dining club that enjoys direct access to David Cameron in return for cash has given more than £43million to the party, it can be revealed.

The secretive Leader’s Group of major donors is open only to those prepared to give the Conservatives at least £50,000 a year.

In return, they are promised regular dinners, lunches and drinks reception with the Prime Minister and other senior Tory figures.

No list of members has ever been published and details of the topics discussed are never revealed.

But data released to the Daily Mail in the wake of the 2012 ‘Dinners for donors’ row reveals that 72 members of the group have taken the opportunity to dine privately with Mr Cameron and other senior ministers in the past 18 months.

Between them, they have given the party £43.4million since 2001. Some have attended at least six Leader’s Group events since 2012.

The decision to publish limited data follows controversy in 2012 when it emerged that Mr Cameron had hosted secret dinners for major donors at his Downing Street flat and at Chequers.

Ministers always denied that donors had used their access to influence policy but quarterly lists of donors who have attended events with the Prime Minister are now published.


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2544318/Revealed-The-43m-paid-elite-group-donors-access-Tories-including-David-Cameron.html

No surprise there then!

Read the Mail fairly in depth this morning online - it has certainly changed it's stance on supporting Cameron, and many of the postings in the comments boxes a condemning the government - unheard of from such a tome in the past.
I am not altogether certain it will support him at the next GE - I suspect it will be looking at supporting a challenge to him sometime next year, it has always been a fan of Boris.

Not that I care one way or the other, but don't the unions give millions to labour?

nicko wrote:Not that I care one way or the other, but don't the unions give millions to labour?

yes they do
And that's the point isn`t it the tory`s constantly attack union contributions to the labor party as some sort of evil ,A party founded by the unions in the first place

he Tory party is bankrolled by a few millionaires? Well – it’s not a few, it’s a few hundred.

The Tories have a slew of high rolling donors – the most generous donor, hedge fund founder Michael Farmer, has given the Tories £2.1m since the election.

Union money comes from its members thousands of them with little influence in parliament ,they don't get exclusive dinners with the PM
But if you have enough money to make a large contribution you get dinner with the PM and maybe a cushy appointment

And he makes sure what you want doing gets done!