The National Union of Journalists has condemned Richard Desmond’s £1m donation to Ukip as an “outrage” at a time when staff at his Express Newspapers titles have not received a pay rise since 2008.
NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said: “Desmond says he backs Ukip because they stand up for people who are ‘struggling’. What about his own staff who have been struggling without a cost of living increase for years? His justification for this in his statement today would be laughable if it wasn’t so sick-making.
“Desmond has used Express Newspapers as a cash cow for years; starving the titles of the resources needed to produce decent newspapers, all the while treating staff with contempt. Now, before he moves to sell the papers he’s long tired of, he’s trying to use the influence they bring to persuade anyone fool enough to indulge him that he’s due a peerage.”
The £1m donation comes on top of the £300,000 Desmond gave Nigel Farage’s party in December, which led to speculation he was responding to the Conservative party’s failure to grant him a peerage.
In October, the NUJ called on Desmond to sell his papers to “someone who cares about journalism”, following the announcement that the company was cutting 200 jobs in a bid to save around £10m. The titles are reportedly up for sale, with Trinity Mirror recently named as a potential buyer.
In May last year, Desmond sold Channel 5 to US company Viacom for £450m.
A spokesman for the Express NUJ chapel said: “Richard Desmond is a billionaire who enjoyed a £360m windfall from the sale of Channel 5 last year and saw his Northern & Shell company record a £37m operating profit. Yet for the seventh consecutive year, he has refused to give his employees a pay rise.”
“Is that what Ukip stands for? A billionaire who has made his workforce 20% poorer in real terms since 2008 by refusing to give them a pay increase?
“Mr Desmond, Britain’s greediest billionaire, has insisted he cannot afford to give us a 4% pay rise because it would cost Express Newspapers £800,000, but he can afford to give £1.3m to Mr Farage. This is an insult to hardworking people.
“As a chapel, we have members who support all sorts of political parties. We take no side in this election. We would say this of any politician.
“We believe that this donation is linked to the Conservatives’ refusal to give Richard Desmond a peerage. In our view, giving him a peerage would bring the honours system into disrepute.”
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