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Priti Patel has declared the most donations of any MP in the first few weeks of this Parliament, receiving more than £175,000 for her short-lived Tory leadership campaign.
The former home secretary’s bid to take over from Rishi Sunak generated the highest donations-to-votes ratio so far. Patel’s fundraising efforts equate to £12,550 for each of the 14 votes she received from MPs in the first stage, after which she was eliminated.
Conversely Mel Stride, widely expected to be the next candidate to be knocked out, raised just £30,000 but went on to win 16 backers – at a much more cost-effective £1,875 per vote.
Kemi Badenoch, who came second with 22 votes, raised the second largest total (£160,000), while frontrunner Robert Jenrick raised £115,000 including £20,000 from the former Tory chancellor Nadhim Zahawi. Their cost-per-vote equates to £7,272 and £4,107 respectively.
The metric is an unscientific indicator of extravagant-but-unfounded expectations (at Patel’s end of the spectrum) and shoestring but surprisingly viable candidacies at the other.
The numbers are from the latest update to MPs’ register of interests, which reveals the extent to which the Conservatives’ leadership race has dominated political donations in the UK since the summer, despite their crushing defeat in July’s general election.
James Cleverly’s fundraising meant his 21 votes were worth £4,333 each, while Tom Tugendhat’s 17 votes cost £3,529.
The five biggest recipients were all vying for Sunak’s job. Only Stride was beaten by MPs outside the race.
Patel’s total was boosted by a single £70,000 donation from Lubov Chernukhin, a longstanding Tory supporter whose contributions have come under scrutiny after the Pandora Papers suggested her personal wealth came from her husband, a former minister under Vladimir Putin.
Zahawi, who is bidding to buy the Daily Telegraph, made his donation to Jenrick via a company he co-owns with his wife.
