Tories lead the way with £2.2m in donations last week

James Tapsfield
Wednesday 28 April 2010 00:00 BST
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The Conservatives continued to raise more than Labour in large donations in the second week of the campaign.

David Cameron's party was given more than £2.2m between April 13 and 19, compared with £1.49m for Labour. The Liberal Democrats reported gifts totalling just £120,000, despite the end of the period coinciding with Nick Clegg's a poll-boosting performance in the first prime ministerial debate. But the figures, published by the Electoral Commission, do not tell the whole story because they only cover donations of more than £7,500 made to the central party. The Tories received 47 gifts of more than £7,500 in the second week, Labour received 14 and the Liberal Democrats had three.

In the first week, the Conservatives took £1.45m, Labour was given £783,000 and the Lib Dems £20,000. The Scottish National Party declared one large gift of £10,000 in the latest period, while the Buckinghamshire Campaign for Democracy, which is opposing the re-election of John Bercow, the Commons Speaker, said it had had two donations worth £20,000 in total.

The Tories were given six cash donations of more than £100,000, with a highest individual gift of £265,000. They also received £25,000 from Warburtons on April 13, less than a week after Mr Cameron made a speech at the baker's HQ in Bolton.

The Labour Party's largest donation was a £500,000 cash gift from the Union of Shop Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw).

The Liberal Democrats were given £95,000 from London-based Alpha Healthcare. The party also confirmed that one of the donations, worth £15,000, was from Greg Dyke, the former BBC director-general

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