Ynys Môn MP receives £20,000 donation from retired City of London hedge fund manager

The Conservative MP for Ynys Môn, Virginia Crosbie, has registered a five-figure donation from a retired City of London hedge fund manager who recently claimed to be “very hard up”.

The latest register of MPs’ interests includes £20,000 in support for Crosbie from Patrick Evershed, who remains a director of an Irish-registered investment fund and president of the Cities of London and Westminster Conservative Association.

Crosbie, who was chair of the Kensington, Chelsea and Fulham Conservatives before being elected in 2019, has now benefited from more than £37,500 in donations from London donors, including property moguls and elite private members clubs, to her or the Ynys Môn Conservatives.

The MP has also registered her first donation from Ynys Môn, with £2,000 coming from Goredd Limited whose nature of business is listed as “other letting and operating of own or leased real estate” on Companies House.

Her latest and biggest donation comes just five months after Evershed told the Times: “I am very hard up because so many companies have cut their dividends.”

“I am dependent entirely on dividends,” he explained. “All my savings are in shares that I’ve bought and I need to have dividends to exist on. There are a lot of people like me.”

‘Wealthy’

Evershed’s poverty plea comes despite the Irish-registered investment trust of which he is director, along with his wife and an Irish “business manager”, holding more than half a million pounds according to its latest accounts.

Electoral Commission records also show he has made 62 donations to the Conservatives worth £492,000 over the past 20 years and the £20,000 support for Crosbie is the joint fourth largest of those.

Theresa May nominated him for a CBE for public and political service in her resignation honours list, which was branded “the last act of a Prime Minister who only ever looked after herself and her wealthy backers and allies” by Labour.

‘Voice’

Evershed’s contribution to keeping Ynys Môn Conservative comes after Crosbie received £7,500 from a trust fund for Britain’s 172^nd richest family in November, £4,500 from the Carlton Club in January, £2,000 from a top end London property agency in March and £3,500 from the United and Cecil Club last January.

Crosbie previously told Nation.Cymru some of the money had been used to fund leaflets about jobs and mental health, saying: “I make no apology for taking donations from London-based organisations and using them for the good of my constituents here on Ynys Môn.”

But critics will say the nature of the donations clash with the image of a ‘blue collar Conservative’ she has tried to build since becoming an MP.

Her website cites her “working class background” and Crosbie told MPs in her Maiden speech: “I am the first person in my family to have stayed on at school beyond the age of 16… I want to be a voice in this place for those who have no voice.”