Party management costs went down under Corbyn. Under Starmer and sidekick Evans, they’ve rocketed
Yesterday, the dire state of the Labour party under Keir Starmer and his general secretary David Evans hit the headlines as the party posted a financial loss of almost £5 million – which would have been much worse had the pension fund not returned a large surplus – and notified the Electoral Commission of the loss of 91,000 members in a single year.
But an eagle-eyed Skwawkbox reader also spotted that, amid the disappearance of huge amounts of cash down the drain, the party’s payments for ‘senior management’ had shot up by an eye-watering 65%, from £533,000 to £880,000.
Page 17, note 11 of the party’s accounts reads:
Key management personnel of the Party are members of the senior management and the total employment benefits of that group [for the 2021 financial year] was £880,000 (2020: £533,000).”
In sharp contrast, overall party staff numbers as of 31 Dec 2021 had fallen – from 424 to 331.
The staggering rise also contrasts with spending on ‘key management personnel’ under Jeremy Corbyn and then-general secretary Jennie Formby, which went down in 2018 and 2019, despite fighting a general election:
2014: £440k
2015: £530k
2016: £561k
2017: £584k
2018: £571k
2019: £485k
2020: £533k
2021: £880k
Corbyn also left the party with a huge and increased surplus.
The report does not give the number of “key management personnel”, so it’s possible that Starmer and Evans have increased the number of managers, but a rise of 65% in a single year appears to be unprecedented.
Either way, for the party to be increasing spending on its ‘fat cats’ as it loses £5m – in the same year as sacking community organisers and cutting other roles – and denying support to workers striking for even a cost of living increase during the cost-of-corporate-greed crisis – ought to be remarkable. That it’s somehow unsurprising speaks volumes about what Labour has become under Keir Starmer.
Labour has been contacted for comment.
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