Taxpayers are Bankrolling Labour!

Following on from this list of Labour Donors, I noted how frequently Unions were appearing on the list.

Recently, a PQ has detailed the cash Unions have received from the Union Modernisation Fund, written about by Iain Dale here. I've decided to not just focus on Unite, but see how much each union has given Labour and see how much they've received.

Whilst these figures do not include FY06-07 where Unite apparently received over £4m they do provide a little colour to show how Taxpayers money is being given to the Unions, who hand it straight back to Labour.



(If the image is unreadable, just click on it for a larger version).

The RMT recieved £194k and managed to scrape together £276k to donate.
The Communication Workers Union donated £151k and were given £166k.
Even the Musicians Union (who donated £281k) got in on the act and were given £47k.


As we can see, the government have given these Unions nearly two million pounds over the last few years. These are the people who have provided a massive proportion of Labour's Finances. In effect, Millions of pounds of Taxpayers money has been directly channeled from the Treasury to Labour's pockets.

Does anyone really believe that if this money hadn't been given to the unions by the government, they wouldn't just have donated a little less to Labour?

EDIT: Updated 17th March to reflect error in donations - caused by not counting donations from Mid-2007

Sources: The above PQ for the union funding by year and the database of party donors from here