 Almost everyone agrees that Britain has a serious housing crisis indeed our Tory government often admits so However, nothing ever seems to be done about it and a recent report in the Financial Times gave us a clue Why the FT have revealed that the Conservative Party's received almost 18 million pounds in donations from 154 donors with property interests since Boris Johnson became UK Prime Minister two years ago a Quarter of the Conservatives party income comes from pleasing landlords There was no data available on donations from private renters as you can imagine I'm pretty sure that doesn't make up a large proportion of income for the Conservative Party To get an idea of why this matters We can take a look at some of the key donors some of the key individuals involved Anthony Gallagher is a billionaire property tycoon specializing in buying and preparing land plots for residential and commercial Development he sold his land business in 2017 for 505 million pounds, but then he reinvested the money in the private rental sector According to the FT Gallagher has been the most generous property donor to the Tories since Johnson took office in 2019 he's given 1.5 million pounds through his company County-wide Development now you might be wondering. Well, you know, what does he get out of this potentially? You know, if you're if you've invested millions of pounds into the private rental market, then you get quite a lot of the Tory government Also And obviously it's not for me to suggest there was anything transactional here It just so happens that Gallagher received a knighthood in 2020 for services to land development and property He began donating to the Tories as just Tony. He's now sir Tony Another big donor was John Stuart Bloor He's the billionaire owner of Bloor homes, which is one of the biggest private house builders in the UK He's donated 1.1 million to the conservative since Boris Johnson took charge As you'd expect as with all of these donors Bloor has denied he wanted any favours in return for that 1.1 million pounds. He told the FT I have never met Boris Johnson or spoken to him or his ministers neither have I employed lobbyists We donate money to the conservative party and charities because we agree with their ethos of aspiration and hope for individuals and children And expect nothing in return for these donations a very very reassuring statement there There are some coincidences Which might raise suspicions though. We know from an earlier report in the sunday times that the timing of these donations is Let's say notable. That's because earlier this year Bloor donated 150,000 pounds to the Tories Two days after a housing minister gave the green light to a Bloor proposal to build hundreds of homes on rural land in Herefordshire Aaron we talked last week about your brilliant piece on some of the effects Of the housing crisis on mental health among many other issues This story suggests it won't be resolved anytime soon I mean unbelievable Michael, you know between 2005 2015 the Tories fundraised a quarter of a billion pounds 250 million pounds That's the kind of money it took for them to To re-end the political sort of mainstream and form a government and nothing's really changed since then And then you compare it to labor Right and labor have made huge and of course you'd hope that there's a labor government in order to change housing policies So that we can stop this rat run that so many people are stuck in Which is a deep dysfunctional way to run society And labor, you know, I saw a funny story being spun by the times last week about how donors are returning to labor One was Dale vintz From ecotricity. Well, he donated money under Corbin Another was a somebody in the gambling industry, but apparently according to matzab, he's he's not particularly bad He donated money under Corbin And then finally there was a donation from trevor chin, which I think was in the tens of thousands of pounds So the the ballpark the Tories are in russian oligarchs property developers people who are Absolutely invested in literally bristons casino economy squeezing the poor and the working class of this country Against trevor chin giving 20 30 40 50 000 pounds And what's super interesting is that many people Were perfectly happy to fund kia stamens become labor leader But they're not willing i.e to remove the left from any position of political influence in this country But they're not willing to fund him against the Tories because fundamentally they they want things to stay the same and I think you know, you have to follow the money in politics and That quote that you just you just read out on air michael was sickening because it said that we support the Tories Because of aspiration for people and for for kids There are 4.3 million people in this country 4.3 million young people children minors Who are in poverty 4.3 million it's gone up pretty much every year since the Tories have been in power since 2010 The people who are renting in private accommodation Has been going up comparative to home ownership or social housing every year since 2010 ditto rough sleeping would have with of course the exception of the the pandemic And and so you're you're effectively looking at you know corruption in plain sight And clearly the only political alternative clearly, you know the whole thing about corbin or bernie sanders and you know You know the the wisdom of crowds and people powered movement and bringing in money, you know this was kind of diminished and mocked by the centrist commentary As if labor have an alternative as if people like this are going to fund the labor party And we're going to start seeing loads of social housing being built or we're going to see greater regular Regulation on hmo's or rent caps of course we are so clearly the only political alternative That could take that on which could find funding would have to be from a different source And and we've just been dealing with hypnotic centrist zombies michael For six seven years and it's it's terrifying and in the meantime these people these kinds of donors like this gentleman the russian oligarchs and You know the fact frankly speaking the parasitic renciers that run britain's economy in their own interest the not not the 1% the not point 1% they're laughing While we have the sort of centrist commentary at thinking that they can do what those guys do and at the same time they can Sort of you know implement better policy when you can't The reason why we have a broken housing system the reason why the Tories are happy to keep on with that is it It's in their interests You know we need to bring people together. It's not about dividing people No, we need to divide landlords from tenants. They don't have the same interests That's not that's not me being nasty and divisive. It's a matter of fact a landlord wants high rents A tenant wants cheap rents It just as a worker wants different things from a boss You know a boss wants cheap employees and a worker wants high wages. They don't have shared interests And sadly women stuck in this very strange rhetorical cycle For too long where it's been dominated by like I say centrist zombies, but this is why our politics has broken michael follow the money We're going to continue following the money There was another ft report on the influence of Tory donors on the party a couple of really good reports from the ft this week in this report they Revealed that there is a secretive club for major conservative donors known as the advisory board And it has been holding regular meetings and calls with the prime minister boris johnson and the chancellor Rishi sunak the club some of whose members have given at least 250,000 pounds to the party has been developed by ben elliot tori co-chair as a means of connecting major conservative backers With its top figures the club does not appear in party literature But conservative officials confirmed the advisory board Occasionally meets with johnson and sunak for an update on the political landscape One person briefed on the advisory board's activities Said it held monthly meetings or conference calls with either the prime minister or the chancellor Some members have used those discussions to call for public spending cuts and lower taxes a donor said The report did speak to some sources who defended The core the tori co-chair for setting up this advisory group They write supporters of elliot say the conservatives have long had a leaders group where donors who give 50 000 pounds are offered regular Meetings with ministers the advisory board operates at a more rarefied level with some members giving the party five times that amount Well-placed conservatives say that not everyone on the advisory board has given 250 000 pounds But some had Now aron the thing that strikes me about this now I think we all you know We knew that people who give 250 000 pounds to the conservative party aren't just doing it out the goodness of their heart Because you know as that property developer said oh because we believe in personal inspiration No, we're not that naive right you know that what is happening is that they want influence over government That's why they do it What shot me about this one those they call them the advisory group Right, you're at least supposed to maintain the pretense right that we don't take direction from our donors The donors donate to us because we do what they believe But we don't do what we do because they believe it, you know, we don't take advice from our donors but they've called the group of five figure donors Six figure donors the the advisory group Well, it goes on there Well, it goes back to the thing I said to you Michael between 2005 2015 Right, the conservatives raise a quarter of a billion pounds It's no coincidence that after 2010 you get austerity and you get a massive growth in inequality Between rich and poor you see a direct funneling of money and funds from the poorest most vulnerable in society to the wealthiest You see the erosion of of the of the state infrastructure Basically to enrich private corporate interests, particularly throughout sourcing zeros contracts privatizations You see the privatization for instance of you know, royal mail You see the Cameron government trying to sell off it sells off for instance East coast mainline It sells off, you know equity and banks those people gave that quarter of a billion pounds the conservative party You know the labor party won't particularly radical under Blair and brown Michael But the point is with the rich that it's never it's never enough It's never enough And so they said look we want our lower taxes. We don't want to actually fund, you know the NHS And their reward was a conservative government from 2010 and shame on them with the liberal democrats Which implemented austerity that is a quid pro quo That was a direct transaction of money resources and funds for certain political outcomes, right? It wasn't an accident if the Tories after 2005 particularly after the financial crisis was saying we're going to increase taxes And we're going to bring things into public ownership. They wouldn't be getting that money, would they? pretty obvious And it's pretty obvious why you know millionaires weren't donating to labor and they still aren't but Particularly weren't donating to labor when when Jeremy Corbyn was labor leader because there's a transaction going on And I find it supremely odd Michael that the exact same people the literally the exact same people Will say on the one hand you get you know Everything has a price. It's all about you know profit maximization Return and investment all these people really cold-hearted ruthless business killers These exact same people will say I'm giving tens of millions of pounds or hundreds of thousands of pounds to political party I don't want anything of return Come on. We weren't born yesterday and again To return to my previous points Michael about the sort of centrist punditocracy Who actually are among the stupidest people in this country if it is willful ignorance Then that's a different proposition, but I think actually sadly a lot of this time. It isn't I think a lot of time They actually believe what they're saying they are the most naive Credulous people imaginable. I think the average person recognizes the fact Big money donors do these things to get influence to shape outcomes So yes, they call it the advisory board, but even if they didn't do that Michael We kind of know why why they're doing this and it's the exact same thing, you know with trade unions trade unions fund the labor party So that we can get political outcomes, which are more advantageous to trade unions and organized labor We we should just be open about it and it's not about oh where they're just equally bad No, this is good. This other thing is bad This other thing is bad a society where jeff bezos can have amazon workers pissing in water bottles And he spends the money on a jolly into space is bad A society where we have universal literacy publicly funded healthcare Everybody has access to a home A job clean drinking water food. This is good. This is qualitatively better than that. They're not both equally bad I think anybody that says otherwise is it's clearly ridiculous or or is actually just incredibly wealthy and wants to kind of Mask the fact they're advancing their own interests