THE Labour Party announced that it recently accepted a donation of £1 million - the largest single cash gift from an outside body in the party's 90 year history - from the Political Animal Lobby (PAL) to bolster its general election fund, and it called on the Conservative Party to reveal the sources of its funding.
The lobby group a British branch of the US based International Fund for Animal Welfare - said the decision to donate the money was due to the Labour Party's stance on fox hunting. Mr Richard Moore, a spokesman for PAL, said: "If this donation helps bring a political climate that ends hunting in this country, then we would consider this money well spent." The Labour Party allows its MPs a free vote on the issue in parliament.
The donation comes in the light of the challenge from the Labour leader, Mr Tony Blair, to the Conservatives to admit who funds the party. "We would have a cleaner election campaign," he said.
A spokesman for the Labour Party described the donation as "the exact opposite to the Tories. This is a British donor, which we are declaring publicly because our long established policies accord with the organisation's aims."
Mr Blair said the donation would increase the perception that Labour is a party of business, despite statistics which show trade union sponsorship still accounts for over 50 per cent of its funding. He said the donation would not signal a change in the party's policy on fox hunting. "To anyone who has given fund ing, we made clear, and we made it absolutely clear to the animal welfare people, that we don't change an iota or a jot of policy."
The Labour Party also revealed its accounts for last year, in which it names 17 donors who each contributed over £5,000 to the party's election fund. They included the media and leisure group Pearson Plc, whose flagship newspaper, the Financial Times, urged its readers at the 1992 election to vote Labour. At over 50 per cent, the trade unions were the largest donors, giving £6.7 million.
The party said last night that when the exercise is repeated next year, the number of individual donors would be "greatly increased". But the Conservative Party vice chairman, Mr Michael Trend, said the publication of the accounts was an "astonishing" admission that Mr Blair's big financial backers are trade union backed hinds.
The Liberal Democrat Party said in a statement last night it would support a requirement for all political parties to "be transparent over funding".