Tories received £20m in registered donations during "democratic" election.

The Tories easily received the most donations in the weeks leading up to the December Election , though whether it made a difference to the result is speculative as they and other parties may not even included them in thier total expenditure 

The BBC report that

The Conservative Party for instance received £1.4m in donations in the final two days of the general election campaign, according to the Electoral Commission and  it is more likely that it was an effort to be seen on the winning side was the main factor.
The SNP got £14,929 and the Brexit Party £50,000, according to the register of donations above £7,500.
The biggest donor was Phones4U founder John Caudwell, who gave the Conservatives £500,000.
Labour, the Lib Dems and other parties did not get any donations above £7,500 in the final two days.
Billionaire businessman and philanthropist Mr Caudwell told the Daily Telegraph he decided to make the donation on the Monday before the general election over fears that Labour would get in.

It seems strange to  equate "philanthropist" with donations to the Tory Part. The Good Samaritan did not give money to the robbers rather than the victim.

He said he had never donated to a political campaign before, apart from to Tory MP Sir Bill Cash's campaign for Brexit.
In total, across the six pre-poll donations reports, political parties in the UK reported receiving a combined total of £30,721,998 in donations, the Electoral Commission said.
Just £231,333 was donated to parties in the final two days of the 2017 general election campaign, with most going to the Conservatives.
The second biggest donor in the final two days of the 2019 campaign was Sir Ehud Sheleg, the Conservative Party's co-treasurer, who gave the party £375,000.
Sir Ehud, an Israeli-born entrepreneur who owns an art gallery in Mayfair, has donated more than £3.4m to the party in recent years.
Hedge funds and property companies also splashed out big money on Boris Johnson's campaign for Number 10, the Electoral Commission figures reveal.
The SNP received a £14,929 donation from one individual, Moira Louise Stratton, in the final two days.
Former Tory Donor Christopher Harborne made two gifts of £25,000 to the Brexit Party in the final two days, having already handed the party more than £3m since the summer.
Mr Harborne is the boss of private plane dealers Sherriff Global Group and the owner of AML Global, which sells jet fuel.
The latest figures put the Conservatives on nearly £20m in registered large donations, compared with £5.4m raised by Labour, although this does not include small donations from party members and supporters.
The biggest non-individual donor across the entire reporting period was the union Unite, which has given £3.2m to the Labour Party.

Many Union members  of course are not Labour supporters , but at least they have some say in  how the "Political Fund" works, shareholders have no say , and one wonders how many customers of Phones4U , would be pleased to find out that they are indirectly contributing to the Tories.

Whether these doners expect a quid pro quo is obviously unproven but in 1916  when David Lloyd George replaced Herbert Asquith as Prime Minister at the head of a coalition government that relied heavily on the support of the Conservative Party. This resulted in a split in the Liberal Party between the Asquith Liberals or Squiffites and the Lloyd George or Coalition Liberals. Since the Asquith Liberals controlled the party and its funds, this left the Coalition Liberals in need of money, and the easiest ways of raising money for party funds was to sell honours.

Now there was nothing new about the practice of selling honours, or indeed of using the funds as a means of party financing. This had been going on for some time, but by tradition such deals were made with a nod and a wink over a glass of port in the Carlton or Reform clubs. What distinguished the sale of honours under Lloyd George was the sheer scale of the operation and the brazen manner in which honours were offered for sale. Ostensibly handled by Lloyd George's Chief Whip Freddy Guest and his press agent William Sutherland, the operation was actually run by a former actor and theatrical impressario by the name of Maundy Gregory. Gregory had his own offices in Parliament Square and openly touted the sale of honours on official government letters that were sent out boasting of the "exceptional opportunity" on offer. There was even a published tariff with a knighthood being available for £10,000, a baronetcy for £30,000, with a peerage title costing upwards of £50,000.

Between December 1916 and July 1922 an astonishing number of 1,500 knighthoods were awarded and Lloyd George similarly bestowed a total of 91 peerage titles within the same period, twice as many as had been created in the previous twenty years. Indeed Gregory, noting that there were men with cash to spare who couldn't quite afford a knighthood, specifically invented the Order of the British Empire to fill the gap in the market. As a result 25,000 people were 'given' the OBE over a period of four years and the 'honour' became so rapidly devalued that it was commonly known as the Order of the Bad Egg.

However not everyone was required to pay, as around fifty or so honours were thrown in the direction of Fleet Street, All the leading newspaper owners such as William Astor (Viscount Astor), Maxwell Aitken (Baron Beaverbrook) Alfred Harmsworth the (Viscount Northcliffe) and his brother Harold Sidney Harmsworth (Viscount Rothermere) found themselves raised to the peerage, thus ensuring that the press were inclined to turn a blind eye to the whole affair.

Prominent Party doners still get peerage and Knighthoods , but the main reason for the likes hedge funds and property companies is to prevent legislation curtailing their often nefarious activities.

It's a rotten system and has no place in a true democracy.