No 10 names Cameron donor dinner guests

David Cameron entertained donors who had given the party more than £50,000 on four occasions at the Downing Street flat since the 2010 general election.

No. 10’s decision to name them follows the resignation of Tory treasurer Peter Cruddas, who quit on Saturday after being secretly filmed by the Sunday Times saying donations of £250,000 would give a donor access to the prime minister at his home in Westminster and an opportunity to feed into policy making.

Tory peer Lord Gold is to carry out an inquiry into the affair, and Conservative deputy chairman Michael Fallon told Channel 4 News Mr Cruddas had “certainly misled donors, that’s why he resigned”.

Mr Fallon added: “He only became the main treasurer, the principal treasurer, last month …. it may very well have been the first big donation that he was hunting down. In any case, he’s admitted now that he should not have said what he said. He’s taken full responsibility for it and he’s resigned and as a result we have much tighter procedures.”

The internal inquiry was branded “a whitewash” by Labour leader Ed Miliband in the Commons. “It’s completely inadequate given the scale of these allegations for an investigation into what happened to be conducted by the Conservative Party,” he said. “A Conservative peer appointed by the prime minister; an inquiry into the Conservative Party, by the Conservative Party, for the Conservative Party.”

Donors

The donors who have experienced the prime minister’s hospitality include businessmen Lord (John) Sainsbury, Anthony Bamford, David Rowland and Michael Hintze.

Mr Bamford, chairman of JCB, has personally donated more than £75,000 to the Conservatives over the last decade, while his company gave more than £250,000.

Tory peer Lord Sainsbury has given more than £400,000 over the past five years and David Rowland, a property tycoon, has donated more than £4m since 2009. According to these figures from the Electoral Commission, Mr Hintze, who made his money from hedge funds, has donated £1.3m in the last 10 years.

The other donors are: hedge fund chief executive Sir Paul Ruddock, who gave £520,000; property developer Michael Freeman (£380,000); and financier Michael Farmer (£2.5m);

No. 10 said the meals in Downing Street had not been provided at taxpayers’ expense and on some occasions Mr Cameron cooked for his guests. It denied that any of those invited had been recommended by Mr Cruddas, describing most of them as people Mr Cameron had known for many years.

Details of donors invited to Chequers, the prime minister’s country residence, were released on Monday evening. They show that David Rowland was a guest, as were former Conservative treasurer Michael Spencer, who gave more than £3m through his company IPGL and £200,000 personally, Howard Leigh, and former Conservative deputy chairman and treasurer, Lord Ashcroft.

Mr Cruddas’ most damaging claim was that the views of high-value donors could be fed into the Downing Street “policy committee”, which was denied by the prime minister.

Mr Cameron said: “From now on, the Conservative Party will publish details every quarter of any meals attended by any major donors, whether they take place at Downing Street, Chequers, or any other official residence.”

Party funding

Cabinet Office Minister Francis Maude told the Commons the government was determined to clean up party funding, which was “disfiguring the face of British politics”, and called for a cap on union donations to Labour.

Party funding: what is the solution?

“The prime minister has said once again he is ready to cap donations, but only if it is agreed that the cap applies to all donations, whatever they are for,” he said. The challenge for us all is to make this process work and reach agreement across all sides to deal with the problem of party funding once and for all.”

Earlier, Mr Maude told ITV’s Daybreak programme: “The key thing to say about Peter Cruddas is that actually what he was saying was both wrong and not true. It was bluster, he was fairly newly in his post as the senior treasurer of the party. No-one in the treasurer’s department knew he was having that meeting and actually we are pretty meticulous about doing these things properly.

“He had been told that there are very strict rules around how you raise money and he was off on a bit of private enterprise there. It was wrong, he has acknowledged that it was wrong and that is not the way we do business and raise money, and we are very clear about that.”

Labour

Meanwhile, Tony Blair’s former chief fundraiser Lord Levy said he was “disappointed” but not surprised by the weekend’s revelations.

“Until there is a change in the system, this is going to continually happen in one form or another,” he told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“I do not really want to personalise this but one has to say that a party cannot have their policy directorate open. Any meetings that are held must be disclosed.”

Were all donor diners old friends of the Camerons? asks our Political Editor Gary Gibbon

The peer said he was not aware that Mr Blair had held any fundraisers in Number 10 or the prime minister’s residence at Chequers.

“I am not saying it is routine,” he said. “I do not want to use the word worse. I certainly never gave any form of access to policy.

“That was something that was absolutely banned.”

But Lord Levy said those making large donations to Labour could have expected to have a “social dinner” with Mr Blair.