Lord McAlpine was Tory treasurer from 1975 to 1990

The Tories refuse to reveal who gave them loans, although some businessmen have confirmed lending money.

Lord McAlpine said there was not much point raising money unless it helped the party win votes.

"In these circumstances, to claim anonymity is likely to cause the public to dislike you," he said.

Deadline

All the political parties have been given until Wednesday to assure the Electoral Commission that any loans received were on commercial terms.

The Conservatives are thought to have used more than �18m of loans to help bankroll their general election campaign last year.

But current Tory treasurer Jonathan Marland has refused to reveal the names of the lenders and only some of them have been named publicly.

Former Tory Treasurer Lord Ashcroft is understood to have lent the party �3.5m and another ex-Treasurer Lord Harris lent �100,000.

Hedge fund Michael Hintze has confirmed lending money - thought to be �2.5m.

And car importer Bob Edmiston is converting a �2m loan he gave before the election into a donation.

BBC Newsnight reported that Johann Eliasch, the man behind the Head sports kit company, had not lent money.

'No reason to worry'

Lord McAlpine, who managed Conservative finances from 1975 to 1990, said the current Tory treasurer should try to ask the lenders to allow their names to be released.

"If the loans are completely honest and straight forward there should be no reason why anyone should worry about that," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

He said the whole reason for raising money was to win votes.

"If you in raising it do something that makes people hostile to you there is not a lot of point," he warned.

An unnamed senior Tory official told Newsnight the party was approaching donors to see if they would allow their names to become public.

Conservative leader David Cameron has proposed a shake-up of the funding rules for all parties, including more state funding, a cap on donations and a ban on loans which are not from financial institutions.

But Lord McAlpine called those proposals "daft".

"If you put a limit on the funds people can give, you then will find a way round it," he said.

"If we have state funding the political class will flourish, the electorate will become more and more fed up and democracy will wither on the vine."

Bank terms?

Lord McAlpine said there should be greater efforts to raise funds in constituencies by knocking on doors and asking local businesses.

The latest Conservative accounts say the party is satisfied it "will not be called upon to repay the loans it has received from party supporters unless it has sufficient funds available for this purpose with the lenders agreeing to the deferral of loan payments and/or the arrangement of replacement loans as necessary".

Asked if he thought these were commercial terms, Lord McAlpine said: "I don't think my bank would lend me money on that basis."

After the revelation that political parties had been getting secret loans Labour revealed the names of the businessmen which lent it nearly �14m.

Those lenders were named as the party rejected claims of "cash for peerages" - claims the Metropolitan Police is investigating.

The Commons public administration committee was due to question Chai Patel and Sir David Garrard, two Labour donors whose peerages were later blocked.