LONDON     -     Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party raised 26 times more in political donations than the main opposition Labour Party in the first week of the official British election campaign. The Conservatives raised 5.7 million pounds ($7.4 million) in six days from Nov. 6 while Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour raised just 218,500 pounds ahead of the Dec. 12 vote, the Electoral Commission said. Johnson’s ability to pull in such large donations underlines his popularity and boosts his party, which is already ahead in the polls. But it could also help Labour renew its charge that the Conservatives are the party of billionaires, bankers and big business. Labour even trailed two of the smaller parties in the fundraising stakes, although it tends to raise more money from smaller donations that fall below the Electoral Commission’s 7,500-pound notification threshold. “While the Conservative Party is in the pockets of vested interests and the super-rich, we are proud that the Labour Party is funded by hundreds of thousands of people donating what they can afford to build a fairer society,” Labour Chairman Ian Lavery said in response to the figures. The biggest Conservative backer was John Gore, a developer, producer and distributor of Broadway theatre, who gave 1 million pounds. The next three largest were the travel company Trailfinders, Countrywide Developers and WA Capital, who each gave 500,000 pounds to the party.