Wednesday 28 January 2015

Mike Freer MP and the £500,000 war chest

I was staggered today to find out how much money Tory MP Mike Freer has in his war chest. According to the Search the Money website http://searchthemoney.com/profile/218?p2=2#tabsx-3 he's had over half a million quid in donations.

Here are the details.
Money found: £503,082.59
 
Donations to Constituency Association:£19,793.13
 
Donation breakdown estimate
 
Cash  £475,969.33
Non-Cash £9,230.13
Hospitality£5,910.00
Kind £15,883.13
Food £2,810.00
Travel£7,248.00
Mike has also had some interesting corporate donors to his cause (and some interesting private ones if you look on the weblink)

Corporate donor

Associate Amount Accepted Details
Ministry of External Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan) £3,600.00 2011-06-08 Donation-in-kind Donation-in-travel Donation-in-hospitality
Conservative Friends of Israel £1,500.00 2005-03-15 Donation-in-cash
PDL Ltd £1,300.00 2006-10-30 Donation-in-cash
Excelsior Properties £25,000.00 2007-11-27 Donation-in-cash
United and Cecil Club £3,000.00 2008-03-31 Donation-in-cash
United and Cecil Club £1,500.00 2008-12-24 Donation-in-cash
United and Cecil Club £1,500.00 2009-02-01 Donation-in-cash
Lakeside Developments Ltd £5,000.00 2009-12-02 Donation-in-cash
Manrows Ltd £3,600.00 2010-02-11 Donation-in-cash
I-CD Publishing Ltd £3,000.00 2010-02-23 Donation-in-cash
Brookstream Properties Limited £10,000.00 2010-04-07 Donation-in-cash
Sun Mark Ltd £1,962.13 2011-04-08 Donation-in-noncash
British Airways £798.00 2010-12-06 Donation-in-kind Donation-in-travel
Excelsior Properties £950.00 2011-12-20 Donation-in-kind Donation-in-travel
Municipality of Morphou £900.00 2010-10-25 Donation-in-kind
Conservative Friends of Israel £2,000.00 2013-02-17
Conservative Friends of Israel £2,000.00 2013-03-07 Donation-in-kind
The Municipality of Morphou, Cyprus £700.00 2013-10-11 Donation-in-kind Donation-in-travel Donation-in-hospitality
Conservative Friends of Israel £1,200.00 2014-03-27 Donation-in-kind Donation-in-food Donation-in-travel
Sun Mark Ltd £2,163.00 2013-12-09 Donation-in-kind
Not a bad little business is it?

Just as a comparison. you may be interested to see Matthew Offord MPs total
http://searchthemoney.com/profile/470
Money found: £59,472.00
Donations to Constituency Association:£11,172.00
Donation breakdown estimate
Cash £48,300.00
Non-Cash £0.00
Hospitality £800.00
Kind £9,172.00
Food £4,272.00
Travel £8,472.00
And what about our longest serving MP, Theresa Villiers.

http://searchthemoney.com/profile/610
Money found: £25,750.00
 
Donations to Constituency Association: £2,000.00
 
Donation breakdown estimate
 
Cash £23,750.00
Non-Cash  £0.00
Hospitality £0.00
Kind £2,000.00
Food  £0.00
Travel £0.00
 
Am I alone in wondering why Mike Freer MP has got nearly ten times as much in donations as Matthew Offord and nearly tweny times as much as Theresa Villiers, who has been an MP far longer and is a minister? Now of course this is total donations and he's probably spent a chunk of it, but that is a simply huge sum.

I suppose the answer must simply be that Mike Freer MP is a really wonderful chap. It seems that his fans are popping up in the press and in blogs to say so all the time, without any prompting from him.

It is 100% clear that his Labour Challenger Sarah Sackman will have nothing like the war chest Mike has to fight him. For Sarah's supporters, there is only one way to counter the huge machine that Mike clearly has at his disposal. They will have to get up off their backsides and work ten times harder.

As the Beatles once said "I don't care too much for money, Money can't buy me Love". It seems that for Mike it certainly must have it's usese though. I am just mightily impressed at Mike's ability to raise funds. If by chance he does lose in May, he certainly won't have to sleep rough. Maybe he should give Tess and Matthew a bit of ahand with their fundraising as they are certainly missing a trick or two.

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