THE Scottish Tory party has received more than £88,000 in donations so far this year, The National can reveal.
The figures were contained in the Electoral Commission’s spending register and cover the first three months of the year in 2021.
There were 20 donations in total between January and March, which totalled £88,550.
The donors were a mix, but most came from 14 individuals. Five came from the Scottish Unionist Association Trust (SUAT) and one company donated £20,000.
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For this analysis, we filtered the data from the Electoral Commission of donations made to Tory party branches in Scotland in 2021.
Although there were Scottish individuals who donated to Tory headquarters, they will not be featured in this report.
The bulk of the donations, £59,500, came from 14 individuals to 10 different Tory party branches.
Peak Scientific Holdings Ltd donated £20,000 to the East Renfrewshire branch. The firm says on its website it is a “world leader in the manufacture & support of laboratory grade gas generators”. Companies house says the firm is registered in Inchinnan, Renfrew, and lists the director as Jonathan Edward McGregor Golby.
The National's analysis looks at donations made to Scottish Tory branches in 2021
Meanwhile, the so-called “dark money” trust SUAT handed over £9050 to five Scottish branches.
The Perth and Kinross branch received the highest amount in donations overall, with £21,000 from four sources - three individuals and one £1000 donation from the SUAT - followed closely by East Renfrewshire.
East Lothian was given £14,500 in total by three individuals, Stirling and Clackmannanshire raised £14,000 from four donations and Highland £5500 from two donations.
The rest of the branches totals were; South Lanarkshire £5,000 (two donations), North Ayrshire £2500 (one donation), Fife £2,500 (one donation), North Lanarkshire £2250 (one donation), and Aberdeenshire £1800 (one donation).
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The majority of the donations were for £5000 or less, but there were three notable donors who stumped up bigger sums.
Kenneth A Graham donated £10,000 to the Perth and Kinross Branch on March 31, and Max Ward, a veteran fund manager and former partner of Baillie Gifford, paid the same amount to the East Lothian department on March 18.
The third highest donor, Lady Tessa E Keswick, gave £7000 to the Stirling and Clackmannanshire branch. Keswick is a former British policy analyst who worked at the Centre for Policy Studies among many other roles.
Her husband, Sir Henry Keswick, is the former owner of the Spectator magazine. There were two separate £1000 donations under Sir Henry N L Keswick to the same branch on the same day, March 8.
The SUAT previously donated to Douglas Ross and other senior Tories, according to reports
There were some other notable names included in the donor list, many of whom are listed as directors on companies' houses.
Scottish Peer Ian Ogilvie-Grant, 13th Earl of Seafield, gave £4000 to the Highland Tory party branch.
Sir Henry Angest, a London-based banker, gave £5000 to the Perth and Kinross branch.
Out of all the individual 14 Tory donors, 12 were men and two were women.
An investigation by The Ferret in June 2020 revealed that the SUAT had been fined by the Electoral Commission for a late declaration of a donation.
Between April 9 2001 and January 5 2020, the SUAT gave £416,510 to the Scottish Tories, as well as donations to then-leader Jackson Carlaw MSP, Tory MP David Duguid and current leader Douglas Ross.
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And the secretive Glasgow-based trust show no signs of stopping their donations to the Scottish Tories.
So far this year they have paid out over £9000 in donations to five Scottish Tory branches.
They gave £2500 to the Fife branch, £2250 to North Lanarkshire, £1800 to Aberdeenshire, £1500 to Highland and £1000 to Perth and Kinross.
The Scottish Conservatives have been contacted for comment.
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