Donations row

It is something of a mystery why Lord Ashcroft funds the Conservative Party (your report, 8 March). Most of his business interests are overseas and his fortune and non-dom status mean that he is hardly affected by even the most lunatic of Labour tax policies.

What is more sinister is the large Labour funder Unite. With it claiming to fund nearly half of Labour MPs and its donations to marginal seats, the union could affect the freedom of individual MPs. Since 1998, the unions have received 96 million of taxpayers' money through the Union Modernisation Fund and Union Learning Fund and in 2006-7 Unite received over 4m. This, in effect, means that we are giving unions money which saves them using their own funds and, simultaneously, they are funding the political activities of the Labour Party.

Lord Mandelson has made great capital of Lord Ashcroft's funding and has also spoken out against strikes by other unions, such as those in the Royal Mail, yet he remains strangely silent on any dispute involving Unite.

The real question is not about funding, but about influence. Is it democratic to allow a small core of unelected staff in a powerful union to use their party funding to influence candidate selection and election funding to further their own agendas and careers?

BRUCE D SKIVINGTON

Strath, Gairloch

Wester Ross