Email
The Conservative party has moved further ahead of Labour in raising funds for the 2015 general election – raking in £7.2m in the second quarter of the year, almost double the opposition's total.
But the Tories will be concerned by a nearly threefold leap in the cash being handed to the UK Independence party, which raised £1.4m in the period around May's European elections.
That put it ahead of the Liberal Democrats on £1.2m and the Scottish National party on £1.1m.
David Cameron has been under renewed pressure recently over wealthy donors after two were among new appointments to the House of Lords and following controversy over funds accepted from Russian oligarchs.
Electoral Commission figures showed that one of the biggest individual donations was £629,570 given to Labour by the property magnate Sir David Garrard, while the Tories' largest were two donations of £500,000 each.
The financier and party co-treasurer Michael Farmer – who was among 12 new Conservative working peers announced last week, sparking a renewed cash-for-peerages row – gave £333,500 over the period.
Of Labour's funds, £683,342 came from the trade union Unison. The vast bulk of the Ukip money was an injection of just over £1m from Highstone Group Ltd, the company belonging to the ex-Tory donor Paul Sykes, who bankrolled the Eurosceptic party's poster campaign.
;