Diane Abbott today accused David Miliband of "buying" the Labour leadership contest.
The MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington claimed the level of funding raised by the shadow foreign secretary has given him an unfair advantage in the race to succeed Gordon Brown.
The latest figures published by the Electoral Commission on 8 July show Miliband, who helped Abbott win the number of nominations needed to be in the contest, has raised by far the most money of the five contenders with £185,265, more than six times the amount raised by the second highest levels of funds, secured by Ed Balls.
In contrast, Abbott says she has raised just £1,700.
But Abbott claimed today that Miliband had in fact "£400,000 in cold cash" to drive through his leadership bid. "There is something unfortunate about even the appearance that someone is buying the election," said Abbott in a video interview for the Guardian.
A committee of Labour's ruling body set a cap of £156,000 for each leadership contender – equivalent to £1 for each party member registered at the time the contest began.
But Abbott pointed out that this cap excluded the cost of staff on which contenders rely to canvass Labour members for their votes.
She claimed Miliband has a 90-strong staff to support his campaign to the "two-and-half volunteers" helping her bid. "You do get very, very tired when you are facing those sorts of odds," said Abbott, who recently attacked Miliband for having "old Blairite money".
She said: "I think that we need a system for the leadership, much like our system when you are running at a constituency level, which doesn't allow people to buy elections."
Abbott said there was "no doubt" that the funding Miliband had to work with made a "huge difference" in the election. "He's already had a mail-out – no one else can afford to have a mail-out ... So he's got the money to have people to do the phone rounds, he's got the money to do the mail-outs, he's got the money to get those leaflets through, and he's got the money to roll around even in between the official hustings and make all these unofficial visits. There's no doubt that money is making a huge difference in the election."
Miliband is seen as frontrunner in the race due to his support base and the funding he has secured during the campaign, though his younger brother, Ed, is closing in, having secured more trade union support via the backing of the three largest trade unions in the country.
But the shadow climate change secretary is lagging way behind his brother in terms of funding. Latest donation levels registered by the Electoral Commission, published on 8 July, show he has £15,000 to support his campaign, putting him behind Balls, who has managed to raise £28,419.
Miliband's campaign office responded to Abbott's claims and a spokeswoman for Miliband said: "David makes no apology for being able to raise money which is what the Labour Party needs to be able to do in order to take on the Tories and fight Ashcroft's millions.
"Part of the money he has raised is going towards training community organisers. To date 1,000 people have signed up to be trained and over 500 have taken part in the training."
But she refused to be drawn on Abbott's claim that Miliband has more than doubled his donations since the last figures were published on 8 July, other than to say the campaign "is complying with all of the rules on financial spending in this contest".
The next set of donations secured by each contender will be published on 12 August. On Abbott's suggestion that Miliband has 90 members of staff to aid his campaign, the spokeswoman added:
"Obviously there are not 90 members of paid staff on the campaign but we have had around 450 volunteers who have generously given their time to the David Miliband for Leader Phone Bank."
A Labour party spokesperson said the leadership election rules ensure the candidates have fair and equitable access to members. "At the start of the campaign all candidates were issued with a code of conduct clearly explaining the rules and the cap on campaign spending. The party offers all candidates equal opportunity to write, email and telephone Labour party members through our national printers, email system and telephone banks. At the request of all candidates, the Labour party has issued every campaign team with a nationwide list of party members' names and telephone numbers."
Abbott set out her stall as the only candidate not to have served as a minister in a New Labour government. Asked in the Guardian interview which of the other contenders – David Miliband, Ed Miliband, Ed Balls and Andy Burnham – was closest to her politically, Abbott declined to comment, alluding only to their generic similarities: "I think all of them are very nice. Nice suits, nice red ties, nice haircuts. All very nice."
She issued a sideswipe at the previous Labour government, of which the other four contenders were part, blaming the former government's record on anti-terrorism legislation and civil liberties on "phoney populism".
"The party under New Labour was being thrown so far to the right they thought they needed to throw a bone to some of their core supporters – this kind of 'we're going to bang people up for 90 days and that will make you safe'," she said.
"It was a kind of phoney and slightly disreputable populism that led us into that and also we were led by the polls. We didn't talk to our members, to our councillors. We didn't offer leadership, we just looked to the polls. They said, 'Yes, bang up Muslim boys with rucksacks for 90 days without trial' and we said, 'Yes, we will do that.'"
She expressed concern that the former Labour government may be implicated in torture as a result of the government inquiry.
"The only reason the Tories are having this inquiry is they think the conclusion will be disadvantageous to us and the question is not whether we tortured people, or whether David Miliband tortured people, the question is: were we complicit, both in torture and in extraordinary renditions? I look at the facts, and the facts will come clear hopefully with the Tory inquiry, but maybe even before that."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/aug/02/diane-abbott-david-miliband-buying-labour-leadership
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