Great Britain and Denmark: Party Funding Regimes and Accounts

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This chapter describes the state of play in British and Danish party funding regimes in terms of donations, disclosure, public funding and regulations on spending, reporting and oversight. I then present the evidence from the ‘official story’ of political party accounts. These yearly returns can provide us with at least superficial understandings of short and long-term trends concerning the ways that parties raise and spend money. Though levels of state subsidy vary considerably between the two countries, there are a number of important similarities. For instance, when both receive donations it tends to be cyclical (i.e. regardless of the level of state subsidy, donations increase in time for general elections).