Ed Miliband’s campaign has announced that it has raised nearly £40,000 in small donations from supporters. This will help feed his narrative as being the grassroots/Obama-esque candidate; given that by early July he had only received £15,000 in large donations.
David Miliband, by contrast, has accepted about £185,000 in big donations (including two of £50,000 apiece) – enough to take him past the £160,000 threshold that any candidate can spend during the campaign. His smaller donations added up to about £26,000 at the last count, meaning his total now exceeds £200k.
Mili-E has also today released the names of 7 more backers from the PLP: Martin Caton, Cathy Jamieson, Chi Onwurah, Linda Riordan, Gavin Shuker, Jon Trickett and Joan Walley. That takes him to 69.
Mili-D this week added 11 fresh names to his list of MP backers – which means he is still ahead in terms of Commons’ nominations. His new support comes from: David Winnick, Rushanara Ali, Jim Dowd, Chris Bryant, Meg Hillier, Dennis Macshane, Fiona Mactaggart, Steven Twigg, Phil Woolas, Keith Vaz and John Mann. He is now at 92.
Expect more to come in in the coming weeks in the form of those who switched their backing from David M to Diane Abbott to get her on the shortlist.
When you stop to think about it, the idea that Ed M has got the big “mo” (momentum) reflects the fact that the union nominations came in after the MPs. If the order was different the media would be bigging up how David M was gaining pace. Such is life.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey