Source of donation questioned (From Witney Gazette)

Source of donation questioned

8:06am Thursday 7th September 2006 in Witney

WITNEY MP David Cameron is under pressure to identify the members of a 'shadowy' organisation which has given thousands of pounds to his local party.

Last December, Witney Conservatives reported receiving £5,500 from the Midlands Industrial Council (MIC). The gift was one of 17 payments the MIC made to Tory constituency parties across England between April 2003 and March this year.

If MIC's donations to Conservative HQ are included, the total value of its contributions to the party amounts to almost £1m over three years.

The composition and purpose of the MIC - which is classed as an unincorporated association - is unclear.

The organisation, which is reportedly registered to a terraced house in a Lincolnshire village, has no website and no listed phone number. Two of the group's members have been identified in national newspapers as Robert Edmiston, the head of the IM Group, which imports and distributes cars, and Sir Anthony Bamford, who lives at Daylesford, near Chipping Norton. He is the head of the JCB mechanical digger dynasty, for which Mr Cameron opened a factory in India last week.

The Labour Party, whose own funding arrangements are the subject of a police investigation, has written to the Electoral Commission asking for an inquiry into links between the Conservatives and Sir Anthony. It has demanded the Tories identify the source of the cash donated in the name of the MIC.

The Conservative Party said the MIC was not a 'party organisation', so the identity of its members was 'not our concern'.

A Conservative spokesman said: "We are absolutely confident we are fully compliant with electoral law."

Barry Norton, David Cameron's election agent, said: "We disclosed this donation in accordance with the regulations of the Electoral Commission. It was all above board."

Mr Norton said the MIC was made up of 'top-notch business people'.

The Electoral Commission said it was in the 'early stages' of considering the contents of Labour's letter.

A spokesman explained that although funding rules prohibited political parties from accepting donations directly from foreigners, taking money from foreign-backed 'unincorporated associations' would be permissible, providing the organisation carried out its activities 'mainly or solely' in the UK.