Buying influence

It’s no secret that successive UK governments have long favoured a “light touch” approach to regulating the financial sector. And it’s pretty obvious the mess that this has left us in. But until the research published this weekend by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, most people didn’t quite realise the influence of the sector over the UK’s main governing party.

Figures published by the Bureau show how the proportion of income the Conservative party receive from the City of London has grown over the past year, and now makes up more than half of the total donations it receives. And within the financial sector, more donations come from hedge funds – big players in food speculation – than any other type of contributor.

These donations dwarf the contributions made by other industries – so it’s not surprising that, despite support for action to tackle food speculation from virtually every other sector of society, from the Pope to Starbucks, the UK government is still failing to support the regulation we need to curb financial speculation on food.

Later this month the European Commission are due to publish proposals to regulate food speculation – and we’ll be ramping up the pressure on the Treasury to support this regulation to put affordable food ahead of bankers’ profits. Join us now.