I am so sorry. If I'd known I would never have done it. At the start of the season I tipped Wigan to be relegated. If only I'd known that Club Chairman, Dave Whelan was going to drop us a million to help fund our election campaign, I'd have tipped them for a European slot. I will take Mrs D to the Fat Duck for supper if Wigan manage to beat Man U in any game this season to make up for it.
This is really good news for us. Not so much the money (though I'm sure it will be useful) but David Whelan is a self-made Northern businessman who has never donated to a political party before who likes what he's hearing from David Cameron on law and order, a traditionally strong Tory issue. And the timing is terrific - just before our Conference. It's the sort of thing that encourages other people to take a serious look at us - and stop being fooled by this nonsense that Gordon Brown is the 'change' that voters want to see. Dave Whelan has put me in optimistic mood.
2 comments:
I know nothing of your Mr Whelan, and even less about Wigan (football?) Club. But I hate reading about any individual "dropping a million" to any political party.
When I started getting involved in politics a "good" constituency election campaign cost about £500. Yhe way we raised that money was by trying to get 2,000 people to donate 5 shillings each, and if we could only get 1,500 five bobs to try and get a further 2,000 to drop a tanner each. That gave each individual supporter a "stake" in the party, and it made sure that the candidate had to work hard to persuade individual voters to support the party fiscally as well as at the ballot box.
I am certain that one of the reasons that fewer people are "interested" in politics now in comparison to 30 years ago is that all parties try too hard to get one individual to give a couple of million pounds to the cause, rather than trying to persuade a couple of million individuals to give 1 pound each.
alwyn - Actually, I rather agree with your sentiment here - and I would be content to see limitations on the size of donations imposed. But I have to live in the world as it is - and that means raising several millions to fight a General Election. Labour seems to have dominated these sort of donations over recent years. It looks as if there could be a change in the air.
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