Have I got to post about party funding? OK… here we go – groan.
I’m not sure I have anything particularly radical or innovative to say, but the most obvious bit of bandwagon-jumping so far has – only slightly conveniently for us – come from the Tories. Their latest proposals seem to be concerned entirely with the appearance of the system, rather than improving scrutiny and enforcement of existing rules, with some arbitrary restrictions on the size of donations, and a populist boot aimed at the backsides of MPs (a reduction from 646 to less than 600 – which I can’t think of any good reason for) and special advisers. What’s the sense in instituting an arbitrary cap of £50,000 on the size of donation? It’s a pretty huge figure for a one-off donation, but it could either be used effectively or used badly: a donation doesn’t constitute a deliberate election- or public opinion-altering ploy merely by being over a certain fixed amount.
Additionally, there’s no recognition at all that individuals and organisations do not necessarily require money to gain influence: what about the role of class, social networks, personal friendships, sexual attraction, ideological commitment, and even the power of persuasive articles and arguments? All of these things can sway policy-makers, sometimes morally, sometimes immorally; sometimes for what turns out to be the public good, other times not. So the obsession with financial donations totally misses the point of what constitutes political power. It does – conveniently for some, predictably, and unhelpfully – boost the public perception that politicians are solely “in it” for the money.
The obsession with “rich businessmen” isn’t constructive either. As I said in an earlier comment, people don’t become immoral/corrupt simply by becoming rich businespeople – many will be as motivated by memories of a good education/NHS investment/support for international democracy as those who can’t so conveniently be caricatured. Yes, the amounts may be larger, but one should gauge corruption via corrupt, or erroneous outcomes, not merely by making assumptions based upon the occupation of donors.
So what about state funding of political parties? I seem to remember supporting this in principle many years ago – which no doubt coincided with the election victories of the then-big-spending Conservative Party. I’d throw out the argument that we’d be faced with the unpalatable prospect of funding parties we don’t like as a matter of course, but I guess I don’t like the idea that people with no interest in politics find themselves having to pay parties, giving them yet another axe to grind – as well as the feeling that it ‘institutionalises’ parties, giving them a recognition by the State and the Exchequer that their ideological battles make them unworthy of. Besides there would, uniquely, be no scrutiny of how effectively this public money was spent.
All in all, I think the main priority is that political decision-making be made more transparent, so that – whether policy changes because an adviser just happened to read the latest and greatest article, bumped into just the right economist at a drinks party, or saw £100,000 go into the Party’s account – there is either an explanation for the change, or at the very least the public/the media are able to see the kind of information (donated amounts, lists of advisers, their CVs, etc.) that would allow them to watch changes in a more informed manner.
Once we have a system like this in place, arbitrary rules on the size of donations, loans, rates, and the kind of people who can contribute, can be done away with. OK, there ought to be a limit, below which ordinary people can contribute to their preferred party without having their names in the papers, but we’d be talking more like £1,000 than £50,000.
No make no comment on the fact that nearly 14 million quids worth of loans were raised from just 12 people, and this fund was kep secret from the party treasurer, chairman and deputy leader.
What does it say about the Labour Party or democracy generally when a political party is reliant on such a large cash injection from such a small number of people? This was a point made by Angela Eagle MP.
No comment on the fact that these donations were converted to loans in an attempt to avoid detection, undermining the spirit of current regulation.
No comment on the fact that some of the proposed peers links to the party (as substantial doners) were kept secret from the Lords commitee vetting peerages.
You don’t even ask yourself the important and tough questions. You would rather excuse the party’s behaviour or talk in very general terms.
The key here is to try to get any political party to raise money from a wider and larger group of people. Regulation and transparency can help in that process.
No make no comment on the fact that nearly 14 million quids worth of loans were raised from just 12 people, and this fund was kep secret from the party treasurer, chairman and deputy leader.
That’s been in the news and is well documented. The secrecy was precisely designed so as not to have their names splashed all over the media and hatchet jobs done on their backgrounds – people like yourself wouldn’t be able to use their names to smear the Labour party, etc. You can perfectly see what they were trying to avoid.
What does it say about the Labour Party or democracy generally when a political party is reliant on such a large cash injection from such a small number of people?
That’s hardly news. People have been allowed to donate to political parties for centuries. Don’t try to pretend that this is a shock revelation just because you hate Blair. What is says is we don’t have state funding yet.
No comment on the fact that these donations were converted to loans in an attempt to avoid detection, undermining the spirit of current regulation.
And now Labour have to pay it all back; you can hardly call that buying influence or anything like sleaze. I’ve already dealt with why they were kept secret.
No comment on the fact that some of the proposed peers links to the party (as substantial doners) were kept secret from the Lords commitee vetting peerages.
You don’t have to declare loans to the peerages committee, silly. And now we can see why they didn’t – it now rules them out of being Labour peers even though they are perfect candidates.
You don’t even ask yourself the important and tough questions. You would rather excuse the party’s behaviour or talk in very general terms.
Well it is a very general debate. The problems with party funding aren’t new in anyway and no one has broken any rules in this instance. Now is really the time for people like you to put up or shut up – tell us how you would fund political parties? Labour are trying solve the problem whereas people like you are just a smear and innuendo merchants.
Meanwhile, 100,000 Iraqis are dead, and Benjamin apparently thinks it’s more important to talk about political party finances. It’s all a smokescreen! Why don’t you focus on the real issues?
IMHO – This issue goes to the heart of the crisis in British politics.
None of this would have arisen if mass membership were recognised as the foundation of political legitimacy.
Save the Labour Party will be calling on Jack Dromey to produce a five-year plan to rebuild the finances of the Labour Party as a democratically-run mass membership organisation.
This needs to be done.
We also need to recognise that being a member of a political party is legitimate active citizenship.
In that regard the state does have a role. It rewards active citizenship if you engage in charitable activity and are a tax payer. But what about those millions of people who are active citizens whose financial contributions are not “matched” by tax relief? And the millions whose activities are political?
The Electoral Commission attempted to raise this in its recommendations on funding political parties. The Power Inquiry has also suggested state support to boost local politics.
So far the political parties have managed to ignore all this. Why? I believe it is because party leaders generally find members troublesome. Tough, that’s democracy.
Let debate commence. Transparency goes without saying.
> Benji: You don’t even ask yourself the important and tough questions. You would rather excuse the party’s behaviour or talk in very general terms.
Don’t I? I attempted to deal with the wider issues of political influence – and raise a few points that I haven’t seen elsewhere – rather than just parrot the newspapers, get angry with individual politicians, and rant against the Labour Party. Much more interesting to build up a plausible case from principles and then judge how well reality fits it. I thought the piece was fairly non-partisan, considering the Tories refuse to give out any of the information Labour has been criticised for.
> Benji: The key here is to try to get any political party to raise money from a wider and larger group of people.
That would be splendid, but it’s not the ‘key’ to the issue of avoiding political corruption, and it doesn’t necessarily help us understand political decision-making. You’re talking about ‘political legitimacy’ – three issues in one.
> Peter: We also need to recognise that being a member of a political party is legitimate active citizenship… In that regard the state does have a role. It rewards active citizenship if you engage in charitable activity and are a tax payer. But what about those millions of people who are active citizens whose financial contributions are not “matched” by tax relief?
Yes, that is a good point. Rewarding actions that improve the social fabric is helpful, and active involvement in local politics is excellent for that. But what about inactive members, or those who express themselves by setting up blogs to tear strips off their opponents and rival factions? And I’d rather it was the participant who was rewarded, not the party – unless revenues went into a fund for membership development, public-spirited local activities.
The appropriate buzz-phrase here is “social entrepreneurship”.
You don’t have to declare loans to the peerages committee, silly.
Well exactly. But the fact they chose not to was completely cynical.
Like a good party hack you just assume that all Blair’s nomonations were good – the doner issue is just “inconvenient – there is no link. What a naive unrigourous approach. I am glad that not everyone is so trusting of politicians – the UK would be far more corrupt in that case.
I suggest you do a bit of research on Chai Patel as well, for starters.
Comments that I have seen all assume that Labour and Conservative parties have a right to large amount of funding and if they don’t get it corruption will just be a fact of life, perhaps even justifiable.
So what if parties have to look to membership fees and very small individual donations for their survival. Would it really be a disaster if the largest parties’ funds dried up and they could no longer afford Saatchi and Saatchi advertising campaigns. The sooner that this happens the better. The major political parties have become monsters that have little or no interest in their membership’s views and perhaps some local accountability might be in order.
Bryanc: The problem with political parties having no money to spend on leaflets, posters etc, is that all the power would be left with the press (and we all know how impartial they are). The press are already too powerful, there needs to be some counterweight.
The answer is to give the individual the decision on whether to donate state funding to a local party by ticking a box on the ballot paper. They can chose which party or decide not to donate any money to any party. They could even donate to a separate party to who they vote for. Simple. It will democratically allow ample funding of parties (all that is needed is 0.01% of tax revenue to meet current levels of funding) without the undue undemocratic influence of wealthy donors skewing policy. The Tory proposals on state funding deliberately discriminate against smaller parties and independent candidates and give no choice to voters on whether they want to donate.
This suggestion on tick boxes is, of course form the Power Commission reccomendations.
Some breathtaking hypocrisy here, lads. It is the direction of travel that is the problem, when modernisers robustly take secret donations from oligarchs. Y’know, For War Not Back, tells us things can only get bettaahh for the few, not the many.
Where’s the hypocrisy – did you read the article? Make it transparent – simple. Whether the takers are modernisers (is that bad?) and the donations from oligarchs (businesspeople?) is by the by. However, as I’ve argued, influence does not need to be bought. Concerning oneself entirely with money misses the bigger picture.
Also, are you implying that the Labour leadership *kept* the money? For themselves?
Seeing as KeirHardiesCap hasn’t answered that one, I thought I might chip in here. When all the known facts seem to be pointing in one particular direction, there comes a point where it’s reasonable to take an educated guess about what’s really been going on. Yes, many of us who used to vote Labour but don’t any more are starting to suspect that the Labour leadership has personally been soliciting and accepting personal bribes in exchange for the granting of political favours. This would explain an awful lot.
Of course we know that the Tories got up to similar things back in the 80s and 90s (cash for questions etc). If there’s any truth in this article from this article in the Sunday Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2103978_2,00.html then it would seem that our whole system has been far more riddled with corruption than has hitherto been publicly known.