JOHN MAJOR suffered two financial blows today as the curtain went up on the Conservative conference at Blackpool.

First it was revealed that East Lancashire Tories have again failed to raise more than a tiny proportion of the cash they are supposed to for the party.

And then the Government learned that sugar giant Tate and Lyle is slashing its financial donation to the Conservatives and for the first time is to give a cash gift to the Labour Party.

For the second year running, East Lancashire constituency parties have provided only a fraction of the money Central Office claims they should give to run campaigns. With a general election looming and the party reeling from the Alan Howarth defection the news is a further body blow to North West Tories. Overall the region has raised just 29.8 per cent of the £253,497 it should have done - slightly up on last year's 26.5 per cent. The total was £75,663 against £67,264 last year.

The worst news comes in the Ribble Valley where the amount raised has plummeted from £2,000 - 30.7 per cent of target - in 1993/94 to just £200 - 3.1 per cent of the £6,514 target this year.

In the figures published of the 1994 conference Ribble Valley's £2,000 came top of the list but this year only two constituencies in East Lancashire raised less.

They are Burnley which raised just £10 - 0.8 per cent of the £1,206 target - and Chorley which raised just £25 - 0.4 per cent of the £5,835 target.

While this is an improvement on the previous year for Chorley which contributed not a single penny to central office last year, it is a significant fall for Burnley which collected £59 - 4.9 per cent of target.

Elsewhere the news is uniformly pretty grim with Pendle performing best raising £1,030 - 33.6 per cent of the £3,066 target, a slight improvement on the £861 - 28.1 per cent - the previous year.

Next in the list comes Hyndburn which raised £421 - 12.7 per cent of the £3,303 target - an improvement on last year's £59 or 1.8 pc.

Rossendale and Darwen raised £482 - 10.6 per cent of the £4,559 target - up from £343 (7.5 per cent) the previous year.

Blackburn Tories handed over £255 - 10 per cent of the £2,543 target - another slight improvement on last year's £209 (8.2pc). In South Ribble the figure raised was £259 - 4.4 per cent of the £5,857 target, while in Preston there was the best news in the area as that raised £640 - 68.8 per cent of the £930 target.

Meanwhile Tate and Lyle today announced it was slashing its donation to the Tories from £25,000 to £15,000. The company is to give Labour £7,500 and is to make a gift to the Liberal Democrats of £2,500.

Tate and Lyle, which controls around a half of the UK sugar market, has been a big supporter of the Conservative Party and made its biggest donation of £50,000 in the election year of 1992.

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