As incomes struggle, the Tories pass around the begging bowl.

Whilst the cost of living crisis continues to bite, the Tories have partied with donors to help fill their own coffers. Whilst we keep getting told there’s no help for us right now during this cost of living crisis, that doesn’t stop the Tories passing around the begging bowl and they had their summer party on Monday night, where a ticket would have set you back between £12.5 and £20,000, so it’s very much a party donors event, the people the Tory Party really work for. They love to hold auctions at these event, selling off everything from signed paraphernalia to access to MP’s and government ministers and the party gets away with largely keeping these things secret because they don’t need to be declared to the electoral commission, since they all count as non-cash donations. It’s been estimated that since 2009 the Tories have raked in some £3.4m just from auctioning items at bashes like this. The top lot at Monday’s event was a dinner with Boris Johnson, Theresa May and David Cameron that sold for £120,000, supposedly a dinner with all former living Prime Ministers with the exception of John Major who stated he has always declined such offers to take part in cash for access, since there is no way of knowing who might win and what benefit they might gain from a meeting. The winner’s name hasn’t been disclosed, but one notable guest who does love to pay for big prizes at such events was Tory super donor Lubov Chernukhin, the former wife of Vladimir Putin’s Deputy Finance Secretary and the biggest female donor in Tory Party history having to date donated around £2.2m to the Tories. That their biggest donor has such strong ties to Putin and Russia is one thing, such is the well known relationship between the Tories and the wallets of Russian oligarch’s but all their insaistent denials about Russian funding fall on deaf ears somewhat when she is still a regular presence at their functions. The Tories raised more than half a million for themselves, more than 2 dozen cabinet ministers were seated at tables where they frankly could’ve been talking to anybody about anything, but the people they certainly weren’t talking to were the striking rail workers outside the Victoria & Albert Museum where the event was held. They were roundly ignored, because as has always been the case, unless you’re giving the Tories lots of money, they don’t work for you.