Hartlepool’s Labour parliamentary candidate has hit out at the town’s MP for taking a £5,000 donation from a Conservative supporting members club which received Covid-19 support grants.
The Carlton Club in London is the original home of the Conservative Party and across 2020 and 2021 it received £843,000 in coronavirus support grants from Government.
The club’s 2021 financial report noted “with the help of the government’s furlough scheme, National Lockdown Grant and a six-month Business Rates holiday followed by 66% Business Rates relief for the second half of the year, the club achieved an operating surplus of £226,000”.
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While it made no political donations in 2021, Hartlepool MP Jill Mortimer is among Conservative MPs to receive a donation from the club in 2022.
On her register of financial interests the £5,000 donation is listed as “support linked to an MP but received by a local party organisation or indirectly via a central party organisation”.
Councillor Jonathan Brash, Hartlepool’s Labour parliamentary candidate, said: “It appears that taxpayers’ money has been funnelled via this posh private members club into the hands of Conservative MPs like Mrs Mortimer.
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“At a time when so many people in our town are struggling with the cost of living and the highest taxes in 70 years, for her to accept this money is outrageous.”
Cllr Brash has written to the town’s MP calling on her to “immediately repay this money to the Treasury and the taxpayers”.
Hartlepool MP Jill Mortimer said she would not be commenting on “yet another trumped up bit of political nonsense” but would be happy to discuss “toxicity in politics”.
The Carlton Club’s 2021 financial report stated “during the year the company made no political donations” and that its £226k operating surplus compared to a £206,000 loss in 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic first took hold.
The Carlton Club has been approached for comment.
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