guardian.co.uk,
Rajeev Syal, Wednesday 23 November 2011
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| Former defence Secretary Liam Fox with his best man Adam Werritty at his wedding. Donors who gave money to the travel fund used by Werritty also donated to the Conservative party. Photograph: Stefan Rousseau/PA |
Three
donors who gave money used by Liam Fox's best man to fund travels across the
world also donated to the Tories in the weeks leading up to the defence
secretary's downfall, new figures show.
Michael
Lewis, who runs Oceana Investments and was a director of the pro-Israel lobby
group Bicom, Mick Davis, the chief executive of Xstrata, and Poju Zabludowicz,
a main funder of Bicom, gave a total of £73,200 to the Tories in the three
months leading up to September.
All three
helped to fund Pargav, the company that paid more than £140,000 towards
lobbyist Adam Werritty's first class flights and five-star hotels.
Fox
resigned in October following allegations that he had given his close friend
Werritty access to the Ministry of Defence and allowed him to join official
trips overseas.
The party
donations have emerged from data released by the Electoral Commission on
Wednesday. Lewis gave £10,000 to Conservative party headquarters in September.
His company Oceana was named in the O'Donnell report as a funder of Pargav.
Davis gave
£48,500 to Conservative party headquarters, £5,000 to Harlow Conservative
Association and £7,500 to education secretary Michael Gove's office between
July and September.
Zabludowicz
donated £2,200 to the Finchley and Golders Green constituency party in August.
His company Tamares gave money to Pargav.
Davis, 52,
is chairman of United Jewish Israel Appeal, a British charity which splits its
contributions between charitable work in the UK and Israel. Davis collects one
of the biggest pay cheques in the FTSE 100 and was paid £21.2m last year.
Davis,
Lewis and Zabludowicz have been named previously as major donors to the Tory
party. Davis gave £150,000 to Conservative party central office over the last
21 months according to Electoral Commission records.
In June,
Davis was among a delegation that included Zabludowicz, the chairman of Bicom,
which met the foreign secretary, William Hague, to discuss the impact of the
Arab spring on Israel.
Kevan
Jones, shadow defence minister, said: "It is clear that the people who were
funding Adam Werritty are funding the Conservative party.
"There
remain big questions over who knew what and when about the funding and activity
of Pargav.
"There
was a lobbying scandal at the heart of David Cameron's government and we still
do not know the full facts. Until we do, suspicion around these donors will
remain," he said.
The
Electoral Commission's figures pose further difficult questions for the Tories
over the party's reliance on City funders.
More than
£1m, 42.6% of the party's donations over the three month period, came from City
backers according to figures released by Labour. Donors include Adrian
Beecroft, who gave £50,000. He wrote a report for the government this month
calling for employers to be given the right to sack unproductive employees
without explanation.
Labour
outstripped the Tories in party fundraising over the summer by nearly 30%, the
official figures show.
Donations
totalled £3,529,270 for the opposition compared with the Conservatives'
£2,744,618.
Almost 90%
of the Labour total, £3,138,443, came from the unions.
Lady Warsi,
the Conservative co-chairman, said: "The unions swung Ed Miliband's
election as leader and it's now clear that Labour is becoming even more reliant
on the unions to keep the party afloat.
"Ed
Miliband should stop being weak and condemn the strikes, but his reliance on
the biggest vested interest in British politics today shows clearly why he
won't."
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