Inside The Battle For Political Donors

Later today senior Conservative politicians and donors will descend on the Hurlingham Club for its annual Black and White Ball – one of the party’s biggest fundraising events of the year.

The cash-for-access event has previously auctioned off items like a home-cooked meal with Michael Gove or dinner in the Churchill War Rooms with then-defence secretary Gavin Williamson.

“It won’t be naked dances with Rishi, it will be pretty tame,” a senior Tory source jokes. 

It was revealed by the Mail on Sunday that Rishi Sunak, who was meant to deliver a speech at the fundraiser, pulled out at the last minute, prompting calls for refunds.

Although he hasn’t heard of refund requests, Charles McDowell, a member of CCHQ's Treasurer's team, tells PoliticsHome that organisers had been thinking of cancelling the event altogether at the start of the election, but ultimately decided against it.

“We had been debating whether or not to go ahead with the ball at all. We could have called the whole thing off but the view was that so much organisation had gone into it and it will be very well attended by cabinet ministers that we should continue as normal. I think donors understand the Prime Minister has an election to focus on.”

But senior Conservative donors and former party treasurers Lord Marland and Lord Farmer tell PoliticsHome they won’t be attending the ball this evening. Boris Johnson’s 60th birthday bash this weekend is proving more popular. 

There [were] a good ‘quarter of a million’ donors who were going to this ball at the Hurlingham Club and now are not

A number of prominent Tory donors have signalled their upset with the state of the party, with some fleeing to Nigel Farage’s Reform Party and others to Keir Starmer’s ‘changed’ Labour