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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
Mikey Smith

Tory donors blew £537,000 on campaign to put Liz Truss in Number 10 for 44 days

Wealthy Tory donors blew £537,000 putting Liz Truss in Number 10 for just 44 days, new figures have confirmed.

The former Prime Minister was handed the eye-watering sum in donations during her leadership campaign - with around half coming from city bankers, hedge fund bosses and venture capitalists.

It amounts to more than £12,000 of donors’ cash for every day Ms Truss was in office.

The final figure can now be calculated after Ms Truss declared her final gift to Commons authorities - £33,265 to cover “winding up costs” for the campaign.

The gift came from hedge funder Jon Moynihan, who had already handed £20,000 over in donations.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who lost the election to Liz Truss, only to become Prime Minister after her leadership quickly imploded, raised more than £458,000 for his campaign.

It was revealed in September that Ms Truss had accepted a £100,000 donation from Fitriani Hay, the wife of former BP executive James Hay.

Around half of Liz Truss' donations came from bankers and hedge funders (Getty Images)

Also bankrolling her bid was Natasha Barnaba, the wife of Alessandro Barnaba, an investment banker and advisor to private healthcare firm Clinova, who also gave £100,000.

Mr Moynihan was a prominent member of the Vote Leave campaign - and has called for the Electoral Commission donations watchdog to be abolished.

He’s given more than half a million to the party in recent years - including £100,000 to Boris Johnson ’s 2019 leadership campaign.

The final declared donation - unusually marked for “winding up” of the campaign - said it would cover “transport, research, office services, and supporter events.”

It was accepted on 26 September, and declared to authorities on 11 November - longer than the 28 day deadline MPs usually have to register such donations.

Contest rules imposed a £300,000 spending limit on candidates - but it did not include travel expenses.

Detailed spending breakdowns are not made public, but Ms Truss mentioned transport on ten of her declarations, worth a combined £134,000.

There’s no suggestion that any of the donations were accepted or declared improperly.

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