Thread by @allthecitizens

🚨EXCLUSIVE:

Average top-tier Conservative donor is a 65 year-old white man called Michael, who gives the party over £500,000. THREAD:

An investigation by the @BITE and @allthecitizens found a startling prevalence for older, white men amongst top Conservative Party donors.

Using publicly-available information obtained from @ElectoralCommUK, individuals who donated more than £100,000 to Tory HQ between 2010 and 2020 were analysed based on sex, age and the economic sector in which they operate.

At least 286 different individuals had donated over £100,000 over the past decade, with a total of £153,777,237 being given to the party by these ‘big donors’, meaning that the average ‘elite’ donor gave some £535,809.

Only 36 major donors were women - accounting for just 12.5% of the list. No women appeared amongst the top 10 biggest individual donors, and only two appeared in the top twenty. In fact more men named either John, David or Peter appeared on the list than the total number of women

The average age of the top donors was 65 years-old and when the ethnicity could be discerned, 86% of big donors were either white-British or from another white background.

48% of individuals worked in banking, insurance or other financial services, whilst 10% worked in retail or consumer goods and 8% worked in construction or housing.

Grant Shapps has stated that donors have no influence on government policy - bbc.com/news/uk-politi…

But, investigations by @BITE have unveiled the prevalence of Conservative Party donors amongst government Coronavirus testing providers - bylinetimes.com/2021/08/09/the…

and Ministry of Justice contracts - bylinetimes.com/2021/07/29/pro…

Research from @openDemocracy has also highlighted the fact that one-in-five elite Tory donors have top honours - including knighthoods and peerages - prompting accusations of a fresh ‘cash for honours’ scandal - google.com/url?q=https://…

The overwhelming dominance of white men from the financial sector in the compiled list of top donors, highlights the dangerous dominance of a small elite who, in modern Britain, threaten pluralistic, inclusive policy making through the appropriate democratic channels.

For the full @BylineTimes write-up from the @BylineBITE team, please follow the link below:

bylinetimes.com/2021/09/08/mee…