Brand appeals for cash for Labour

Jo Brand has emailed thousands of Labour supporters asking for cash to help stop David Cameron winning the next general election.

The comic said millionaire backers would be queuing up to bankroll the Tories if they thought the new leader had a chance of victory.

As polls showed the Conservatives overtaking Labour in the polls, she warned: ‘Tories think that they have the whiff of power in their nostrils and they will be willing to do and say anything to get it.

‘The Tory press are lining up as cheerleaders and we can expect multi-millionaire backers to throw any amount of money at the Conservative Party if they sense a real chance of victory."

‘A tenner to help keep the Tories out of government? It's cheaper than paying 15% interest on your mortgage that's for sure.’

And she warned that Cameron was not a modernising ‘champion of change’, saying: ‘He didn't just support the Tory manifesto this year, with policies to subsidise private health care and private education and irresponsible focus on immigration, he wrote it.’

Her email started: 'Hello, I’m Jo, a Labour supporter and you may have seen me on the telly.'

Labour is not without its millionaire donors, too, with Lord Sainsbury, publisher Lord Hamlyn, and former Tory philanthropist, Sir Christopher Ondaatje among the biggest. Eddie Izzard gave the party a five-figure donation in 2001, too.

Published: 12 Dec 2005