A billionaire hedge fund founder who has given nearly £1.5m to the Conservatives has been knighted in the new year honours list, prompting accusations that Boris Johnson has “the wrong priorities”.
David Winton Harding, who has been funding the Tories since 2006, was given the award for services to philanthropy.
The founder and chief executive of Winton Group is well known for supporting research and science projects, having given the largest single donation to the Science Museum, as well as multimillion pound donations to the University of Cambridge.
A physics graduate from Cambridge, Harding pledged that some of the funds would be used to promote access for students from disadvantaged and minority ethnic backgrounds.
A financial backer of the remain campaign during the EU referendum, Harding most recently gave £100,000 to the Tories in April and handed £300,000 to the party in the autumn before the 2019 election.
Angela Rayner, the deputy Labour leader, said: “During the pandemic the public has rightly come together to celebrate the real heroes from all those keeping our NHS going, our vaccine volunteers, key workers and all those who went above and beyond to keep our communities thriving. This [Harding’s knighthood] just shows that once again the Conservatives have the wrong priorities.”
Anneliese Dodds, chair of the Labour party, said: “It seems the Conservatives are ringing in the new year in exactly the same way they’ve seen out the old: by rewarding their chums with gongs instead of our key worker heroes.
“If you want Boris Johnson to recommend you for a knighthood, don’t bother working long hours on low wages to help others – just become a hedge fund manager and donate half a million pounds to the Tories.”
Two longstanding Tory MPs – Bill Wiggin and Robert Goodwill – were also knighted for their “political service”. Wiggin has been an MP since 2001, largely as a backbencher, and previously served as a whip. He is now a member of the liaison committee that scrutinises the work of the prime minister. Goodwill has served as a minister in four departments.
In previous years, the Tories have given many more honours to donors, aides and politicians, prompting cronyism rows.
Harding and No 10 have been approached for comment. Harding has previously suggested he would back state funding of political parties. “I’ve given a bit of money to politics. I rather wish I didn’t have to,” he said in 2015. “I rather wish it was all funded some other way and that would remove the whole issue.
“I’m sympathetic to the Tories and their approach to raising money but I’m also sympathetic to people who don’t like that in the UK. The Lib Dems said it should all be state funded and I’d be perfectly fine with state funding.”
