Labour all set to go bust?

We've all got debts coming out of our ears - be they student loans, gas bills that you've sellotaped to the fridge for three months and ignored completely, or the owners of several local bars hunting you down and informing you that the tab you've been keeping for the past eight years is due for 'a review'.

Pity the Labour government, then - according to reports, they're a whopping £24 million in debt, and have a deadline of mid-summer to pay back a significant chunk of that amount. Such is the appalling state of the party's finances that the Electoral Commission may even refuse to sign off Labour's accounts until things are smoothed out. The party is no longer seen as a viable option for wealthy donors, it would seem, and - like so many other things - it looks to be all the fault of Gordon Brown.

Check out the thoughts of two anonymous donors, as harvested by the Daily Mail:

'I'm not going to give them any more money while Gordon Brown is leader. It's time for the next generation to take over.'

'He is not up to the job. Being Chancellor played to his strengths, but Prime Minister seems to bring out every weakness.'

Certainly no fence-sitting going on, is there? The most worrying part of the decline in private donation to the party - or maybe not so much to the Old Labour brigade - is that Brown's people may have to start making serious concessions to various unions. The unions already supply Labour with 90% of its cashflow, and that figure only looks set to rise ... which, given the already tumultuous state of the UK economy, could make our industrial infrastructure a tiny bit more wobbly than it already is.

Written by C J Davies on 25 Jun 2008 12:00 AM. There are 1 comments so far. Permalink