Labour of Love, but BNP late with accounts,

Wondering where on the web I can find a record of corporate donations to the Labour Party, in pursuit of my research into the overweening influence of TNCs on governments. I stagger as far as the Electoral Commission's page on main political parties' financial accounts, but they are just boring local party details, chickenfeed. I try searching here, but come up with zilch results.

Then my attention is diverted by the following: The British National Party and the party’s Regional Accounting Unit were both granted an extension to the deadline for submitting their statements of accounts. Both have failed to deliver their accounts within the extended deadline so the party will be fined a minimum of £500 and the accounting unit will be fined a minimum £100, this figure will increase if the accounts are more than three months late.

Interesting. The natural reaction is to assume that their accountant has run off to the Bahamas with their funds AND their books, but that would be an unkind not to say libellous assertion. A second unkind thought occurs, that the BNP may not be able to find someone who can add up.

Anyway, back to corporate donations to the Labour Party. There must be some record of who gives what, and we really need to know who is driving their decisions, because it certainly ain't the interests of the common people. Aha, here it is. Top donors to the grey parties, quarter 1 2009. Companies account for 6% of Labour's income, compared to 16% of the Tories. (PriceWaterhousCoopers gave £102k to the Tories, so no need to expect any financial regulations from them when they are elected).

Sainsbury gave Labour £500k, Amin Hemani £51k, Alistair Knott £40k.

They're all clean as 3 penny whistles, afaik. In fact, the latter 2 are so obscure you can scarcely find them at all on a Google. They are just lovely peeps who love NuLabour. Heartwarming stuff.

A morning wasted, but not totally, because I took out a subscription to Private Eye - the only publication of integrity in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy imho.