“I don’t think that someone who happens to have been an extremely good businessman and has made a great deal of money through business activity – usually also an enormous amount of philanthropy as well, those are the sorts of people who are across our country, amazing people of all political colours – that they should be barred from going to the House of Lords because they have made a lot of money, employed many, many thousands of people, run incredible businesses at their own risk, that that is somehow is a bar.”
But insiders claim that peerages have been given to wealthy businessmen, in what “appeared to be a reward” for bankrolling the Tory party.
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, accused the Conservative Party of being “corrupt, dodgy, sleazy and on the take”.
There is no evidence that individuals ‘bought’ peerages for a set price. But analysis shows it is staggeringly unlikely that making big political donations is not a factor in securing a seat in the House of Lords.
In fact, the odds of so many Tory donors in the UK population all being given peerages is equivalent to entering the National Lottery 12 times in a row, and winning every time.