With typically little fanfare, the Electoral Commission has just published political parties’ statement of accounts for 2012 – and there’s much worthy of note.
First, to the grim state of the Lib Dems. The party raised £6.02m last year but spent £6.4m resulting in a deficit of £410,951. Over the same period, its membership fell from 48,934 to 42,501, a fall of 35% since 2010 (when it stood at 65,038) and the lowest annual figure in the party’s 23-year history. Based on the current rate of decline, UKIP, which now boasts more than 30,000 members, will soon supplant them as the third largest party by membership.
The picture is rosier for Labour, which had a total income of £33m (aided by £6.7m of state funding – the “short money” received by opposition parties), up from £31.2m in 2011, and expenditure of £30.2m, leaving a surplus of £2.8m.
Less happily, party membership fell from 193,300 to 187,537 and it’s also worth noting the hefty £7.96m received in affiliation fees from trade union members, around 90 per cent of which the party is likely to lose when the new opt-in system promised by Ed Miliband is introduced.
Finally, to the Conservatives. They raised £24.2m, up from £23.7m last year, and spent £23.3m, leaving the kind of healthy surplus that has so eluded George Osborne.
The Tories don’t release a central membership figure (the best available estimate puts it at around 130,000) but their income from this source has fallen from £863,000 to £747,000, a drop of 13% that suggests no small number of “swivel eyed loons” have decided to try their luck with Farage.
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