A “rare chance” to join the Conservative London mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith on the campaign trail was among the prizes up for grabs at this year’s highlight of the Tory fundraising calendar – the ‘Black and White Party’.
In the end, the prize was auctioned off for £35,000 by Tory chair Lord Feldman at Monday night’s event, conveying the lucky winner the chance to not only join Goldsmith on the campaign trail but have lunch with Feldman, too.
A succession of cabinet ministers pleaded to suffering from sudden bouts of amnesia after they were met by journalists waiting outside the event at the Montcalm at the Brewery, a hotel-cum-club boasting “an old-world feel with a contemporary twist” near London’s Barbican Centre.
Details of the evening eventually trickled out however. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was said to have been the butt of a few jokes. But it was the electoral artillery which the Conservative party brought to bear on his predecessors that came into play for fundraising efforts.
Election posters, including one from the the 2015 contest showing Ed Miliband in the pocket of a giant Alex Salmond, reportedly went for £50,000. Each one, from four general election victories between 1979-2015, were signed by the prime ministers they represented, according to a brochure for the evening.
Other auction lots included weekends away in the countryside, a £1,000 Kurt Geiger voucher and an 18ct white gold diamond tennis bracelet. More colourful, and cheeky, perhaps were 20 tickets to see Adele, a self-confessed “Labour girl”, which went for £30,000.
The event’s preparation is shrouded in secrecy, and it remained unclear if the prime minister received what some commentators suggested might be an ‘ear-bashing’ from Eurosceptic donors.
Among the Conservative backers spotted were Howard Shore, executive chairman of Shore Capital, as well as Anthony Bamford, Chairman of JCB. They and others emerged into the cold night at about 11pm, some stepping into a succession of waiting limousines, others appearing a little lost as they looked around for black cabs still with their yellow lights on.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, was the among the Tory MPs who showed up, cycling off through security and a phalanx of photographers.
Other senior Tories on duty included the education secretary, Nicky Morgan, the defence secretary, Penny Mordaunt, and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt. Among those left waiting in the cold outside the venue was a sousaphone player who had followed Hunt around last year. Lynton Crosby, the Australian electoral strategist widely credited with steering the Tories towards their election victory last year, also emerged.
“Nothing that I could afford,” he replied laconically when asked if he had been tempted to bid for any of the items.
Guests arrived hours after Channel 4 broadcast a report suggesting that tens of thousands of pounds of spending by the Conservative party in key byelection campaigns during 2014 appear not to have been declared.
