Hilary Benn receives £15,000 in donations from former PPCs?

A little update on my post of last week where I asked where Hilary Benn's funding was coming from as he did not appear as a registered donee on the Electroal Commission website.

At some point since then he has been added, and declared two donations to the total value of £15,000. Someone called Mark McDonald appears to have chucked £5,000 in the direction of Benn. This might be the same Mark McDonald who ran for Labour in Wantage against Ed Vaizey in 2005, then again it might not.

The other £10,000 donation came from Kevin McGrath. This may, or may not be the same Kevin McGrath who is also a former PPC, is a listed Labour donor on the main party website and was also mentioned in an allegation of "cash for access" in the Guardian last year.

The bottom line though is that Hilary Benn has a declared pot of cash to spend thanks to two wealthy donors (wish I had ten grand to throw around).