* Each party gets 60p per vote in Westminster elections and 30p per vote in European or devolved elections
* This would cost £28 million per year
* In return Parties (including Labour) would have to cap all donations at £50,000
In short it's a cosy stitch up between the mainstream parties with nothing at all for smaller fringe parties. Naturally, this is to prevent any going to the BNP. Now don't get me wrong, I don't want the BNP to get any money either, but if we start bringing in rules which discriminate against a party we don't happen to like but is perfectly legal, then we are on a very slippery slope indeed. I actually think it could be completely counterproductive and perversely make the BNP more popular, as they play on the fact they they have been hard done by by the political elites.
As an aside, I had to laugh at the LibDem response to these proposals.
The Liberal Democrats will oppose the pence-per-vote scheme, arguing that
it fails to take account of tactical voting, and would mean that voters would
subsidise parties they do not really support.
Pathetic. If the argument is that it will stop tactical voting, I might be all in favour!
View the 18 Doughty Street advert against State Funding HERE.
75 comments:
The problem would largely go away if parties were prevented from spending so much. With no advertising, focus groups or spin-doctors, there'd be no need to flog peerages or raid the public purse.
So the taxpayer can withold their subsidy by not voting?
I thought politicians say that they want to INCREASE participation!
No wonder politician's get it in the neck all the time ,they need to listen to the people , my answer is still the same NO NO NO.
we lose, they lose ,and I will be watching which party agrees then I will decide on who I vote for.
You don't like tactcal voting?
I thought you were telling people not to vote UKIP in case, by not voting Tory, they let in Labour. I think what you mean is you don't like tactical voting that doesn't help the Tories.
However I entirely agree this is a stitch up "Under the scheme, parties would be eligible for public funding if they have at least two elected representatives in either the House of Commons, the European parliament, the Scottish parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, or the Northern Ireland Assembly."
Any chance of a petition on the PM's website?
His Grace is more than a little depressed by this, and (after two glasses of red wine with his Sunday roast) is thinking of donating his 60p to the 'poor' and 'disenfranchised'.
Sir Hayden has broken under the pressure of the unity of the 'big three' political parties. Now that votes mean money, His Grace is inclined to believe that a lot more of the smaller parties may well begin to do a whole lot better...
Don't the Lib Dems currently benefit the most from tactical voting, anyway?
*predicts Ming Campbell's surgeon being required to treat a gunshot wound to the metatarsals*
And yes, ed is right. Does state funding mean we could ask for our 60p back if parties deviate from their manifestos? I do hope so.
Love it,
Vote fringe party, and then watch the big three go Bust!
The Taxpayer should NOT be funding political parties. Its wrong.
But then Labour has been doing it by selling seats int he Upper House.
There does need to be a complete over haul but not by the this.
And as for the lib Dems, well I'm siure they can just find some dodgy business man somewhere to give them a briefcase of cash!
I'm sickened by this. No way should we pay for the electoral circus.
Cherie Blair spent c £7000 on hair styling during the last election and it's claimed this came out of the loans given to nulab to fight the election.
Are now to be forced to pay for this sort of profligacy by politicians and their wives? No way!
I feel like I'm living in a banana republic here, one where politicians can grab any amount of our taxes to award to themselves to assist their bid for power and priviledge.
Badly informed boy, you are so right. The only way to put an end to corrupt practices regarding electoral expenses is to severely cap spending.
I may now be forced not to vote as their is no way I want my vote to subsidise greedy politicians.
Well done Iain for opposing this.
Auntie Flo'
They can always have their own supercasinos. if they are the biggest party on the council where it is they can also create a monpoly in that area if it is the council that give licenses for it.
If we taxpayers have to fund one we should fund them all; BNP, Communists, whoever.
As a liberal iain i both agree with you and about the pathetic lib dem response which ignores the point of principle. This sort of carve-up of the trough would also be a godsend to the BNP.
My preference would be to permit taxpayers to donate up to a limited (modest) sum each year, perhaps through their tax returns, and to get tax relief on the donation. That way money would only flow to parties where people wished to give. Only allowing a small sum to qualify for tax relief would also help prevent abuse.
Yes, I've been wondering who leaked the draft to the ST. That aside, the proposal is completely unacceptable. Ed saw the main flaw straight away; that citizens already grossly disillusioned and disengaged by the current stitch-up will desert the polling booths in even greater numbers as not voting would actually have an effect on undermining the system whilst voting would have none.
You neglected to mention Phillips' other hurdles; parties must already have two sitting MPs, MEPs or MSPs. But if small parties that meet this test have no candidates standing locally, how is this going to effect any change from the status quo whatsoever?
Hayden Phillips must at one time have been an intelligent man. These and other critical flaws with his reportedly favoured scheme must be obvious to him. If not, he's clearly not the man to conduct this inquiry.
Helena Kennedy's 'Power' commission examined this issue exhaustively and came up with the only sensible suggestion I've seen so far - one which Phillips either studiously ignores or chooses to misunderstand.
Why?
Apart from the "2 elected representatives" threshold these seem, to me, to be very good plans. No public support = no money. Lots of public support = lots of money. Better than what's happening now.
Except I'd change the proposed money per vote scheme to just 30p per vote (for all elections be they national, local or whatever).
State funding seems, to me, to be the only fair way forward. I'm not going to miss a few stray pennies that'd otherwise just go on crisps and chocolate.
Would the parties not be "obtaining money by deception" if they failed to deliver on election promises?
If the money is directly linked to votes then surely this should apply?
Cramner - why not create a party which only promises to give the 60p per vote to a charity of your choice? Might get some support...
60p per vote in WESTMINSTER elections?
Traditionally the SNP has a lower vote in W'minster elections because many voters don't think it matters if they vote SNP for W'minster. So Labour will get more money and use it in the next DEVOLVED election campaign. Very fair --I don't think!!
Whole idea of public funding is crap anyway--a lifeline for Labour who won't get any money now from would-be peers, and also have a decreasing party membership.
If they bring this in, I will refuse to pay my share of this insane taxation.
If a party cannot gather the required funding from its supporters it should not exist.
Furthermore, Instead of parties wasting millions on advertisements and other media rubbish, why don't they get out on the street and persuade voters to give them their support?
This kind of thing makes me so angry. Bunch of self serving arrogant gits.
Every day this country gets worse and worse.
If we stopped pouring money into the black hole of Iraq and Afghanistan we could afford this easily.
I can partly understand the idea of paying parties for every vote they get. However, surely a large majority of eligible voters will think that it is another reason not to vote, not wanting to pay politicians to lie to them.
So, Iain, you want to abolish tactical voting, but oppose any PR system that would mean tactical voting would be redundant?
Have that cake. Hope you enjoy eating it. You twonk.
Since you're so vehemently against the taxpayer funding politics, may we look forward to you campaigning for David Cameron to send back the millions a year the Tories take from the state in so-called "Short" money...?
Nope, didn't think so.
A great deal of New Labour propaganda is already pumped out at the taxpayers's expense, thinly disguised as "public information".
Iain, as a member of an opposing political party, it's nice to find myself in complete agreement with you on a certain issue such as this.
What worries me is that there has been no sensible discussion about what is the right amount political parties should be spending. The current limits do not include most staff and property costs - and it is not clear whether or not they include spending in constituencies before the election is called. Most politicains are plucking figures out of thin air without any understanding of how much things actually cost. Anyone who thinks political parties will stop spending money on advertising, focus groups, spin doctors etc is living in a dream world.
Marketing ideas and concepts in the present world is expensive - look at the cost of commercial marketing or the editorial operations of any newspaper or television programme (e.g. what is the annual budget for 18 Doughty Street and what proportion of the population does it expect to reach - now convert this to a national level and what figure do you come up with especially when most of the population still do not use the internet or have broadband). The days of getting ideas across soley by volunteers knocking on doors are over.
Only if there is some sensible thinking about how much parties should be spending - can sensible views be formed about how much income should be given to parties by donors/the state. There is a real danger if political parties do not have enough income to operate effectively - they should experience some pain when they are unpopular but there should be some limits.
One of the goodthings about Oligarchy is that we get to pay without troubling ourselves about agreeing to the larceny
Do you not smell a rat here?
Incensed voters refusing to vote, unproven and untested e-voting systems, probably in marginal wards, and hey presto, by popular demand NuLab win again..
The problem is we give them an inch they will take a mile ,60p will become at the next election 68p then £6.00 ,no ,please spend your own money ,not mine
If you are self employed just reduce what you pay in tax. Take them to court and what it costs them to get the money back increases the liability to the public purse.
Any magistrate/ Judge would never go down that road as you will appeal, which will cost even more public money, times 1000's
The biggest aspect of this story is that a Labour government is on the verge of severing the ties between the Labour Party and the Unions.
If this goes through this will be line in even the most condensed political history. This is the end of Old Labour.
Labour party bust.
Tory party well funded.
Answer: "an independent" report comes up with the idea of giving £27m of taxpayers money to the labour party.
Disgraceful
Cramner - why not create a party which only promises to give the 60p per vote to a charity of your choice? Might get some support...
Indeed it might. If anyone comes up with an apt name for such a party, His Grace may very well support it.
Ian, I think you and Guido are wonderful the way you are constantly highlighting this sort of very worrying development. We are being robbed of democracy by stealth. I have long thought the most worrying thing of all is the way New Labour have constantly sought to undermine the electoral system they were happy enough to be elected under in 1997, because if we are robbed of a fair vote, we really have nothing at all.
A cunning stunt by the establishment to bail their political parties out of the mire. With Labour debt at 23 million and the Tories a wapping 35 million in the red, only tax payer help, or the promise of peerages and such will prevent the creditors calling in the receivers.
With Labours failure to keep their own house in order, transposed into insane Govt spending policies that now sees UK PLC on the brink of bankruptcy can anyone trust the Tories and their insolvent practices to get us out of the mire? I think not.
Ian is right though, if this kind of funding is not given to the likes of the BNP then it does give us another stick to beat the establishment with.
By not including the so called smaller parties, you're damned if you do and you're insolvent if you dont!!
It will become us against them and there are a lot more of 'us'! The fringe parties will have a field day! Vote for your lunatic fringe apart from the biggest loonies of them all. Hurrah for democracy!
6:02 PM
Check this out on Broadband usage
things are achangin
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/06/02/ofcom_broadband_stats/
Anon @ 6.20 makes a good point. Why should the parties continue to be funded at today's levels?
At the general election my vote was only canvassed ONCE. I received no literature through the door and I saw no hustings events advertised in my constituency. Why should any party get my cash?
Of course, if we appointed Boris Johnson 'life president' we could save all this mucking about, and save a packet into the bargain.
There are many people of both parties who think he might to a better job.
The problem would go away if people stopped voting.
So how long before we see the rise of US style 401k "political campaign groups" (or whatever serial number they give those things over there)?
And how long before a future British PM is under investigation for having secret election slush funds, in the manner of most of the european political elite?
Sir Hayden is simply providing yet more scope for the morally bankrupt to be corrupt and shady.
The whole thing is pure madness and would never have been though of without the rise and rise of Lord Cashpoint!
Better to cap spending than fund raising. Better to eliminate spin doctors than small donors.
They'll think of anything to keep themselves in power won't they? But of course, they're Socialists and people can't, just can't be trusted to vote for the right party, choose their own health care, send their children to schools that they want (unless of course they are NuLabour Cabinet Ministers), be masters of their own destiny and have laws decided in their own Parliament can they now?
Open question to the several Labour commenters here - is this what you wanted? Power at any cost, sleaze that makes the Tories in the 90's look like babes in the wood, the destruction of centuries of checks and balances, the annihilation of our civil rights and the dissolution of the union?
I voted Labour in '97 because I thought they had learnt their lessons - Class War was always a stupid idea, and state ownership of property (clause 4) is the thin end of the wedge to the state ownership of all property, which of necessity includes people (the state becomes all-powerful).
I utterly despise this government. They have ruined a great country and it is going to be a Herculean task to put it right.
Nice to see on the TV this morning Iain. As promised, your tie was...quite memorable.
However, Yasmin Alibhai Brown's boots stole the show. Did she used to play lead guitar in Spinal Tap?
The trouble with pennies per vote is that, even if it starts at a reasonable level, it can be cranked up over time. Politicians can then supplement their MP's pay with party posts giving them more money. Doesn't sound good to me.
I wonder how rules on fund raising would work. What if the Lib Dems started selling advertising in their newsletters and turned them into profitable publications? What if they became the largest local newspaper publisher in Britain? Would this be allowed?
It disgusts me that David Cameron has expressed support for state-funding. It seems you actually can put a price on democracy.
And since parties will benefit even if they don't win seats, what an incentive to multiple voting, especially since NuLab made postal voting so open to 'vote early, vote often' - we know it happens, we just can't prove it, or afford the costs of taking the guilty party to court.
if state funding happens - i'm packing my bags and i'm off to America.
it's lose lose all round, and we are only having this debate because labour are in so much trouble.
this must be stopped!
There cannot be state funding without at least some measure of state control, and that is why those who want it do so: they hoep to be appointed to the gahsatly glorified committe that will decide which parties or candidates do, and which do not, deserve public funding.
Oh, and a cap of £50,000 would be nothing to Labour (or whatever succeeds it, both parties being demographically doomed): the union link is merely a collection mechanism, and in fact each of the political levies thus collected is a separate personal donation of a few quid per year, on the part of millions of people.
Contrast this with Cameron's Batersea bash this week (in support of a Eurofanatical Tory PPC in one of the most winnable setas in the country), at five grand per head. Does he imagine the attendees to be normal people? Yes, he does.
Disgusting result by the Hayden Committee. I could see when I was making my (anti state-funding) comments there that the whole site was being professionally manipulated by the usual suspects from NuLab local gov. and their lovely plausible 'let's all be nice' guff.
Passport to Pimlico may be the only option now?
David Lindsay
1. It was not held for Battersea Conservatives
2. Jane Ellison is not a Euro Fanatic
3. Tickets were £300, not £5000
Apart from that...
PR by the back door - now we can have lists of people you've never heard of, and give a subsidy to politicians who can't normally get anyone to vote for them.
I hope we all enjoy it.
This will never happen. Brown will not allow Union Members to be prevented donating £2.50 a year in painless weekly drips of 5p per week. This looks like a deal that is deliberately done up to support the desired result. It is not really meant to ever become a done deal.
Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah... but it seems to me that the BNP could do with a little outside help.
What are your thoughts on this, Iain?
PS - I'm 'grabbing' this... so please don't delete it.
As a Conservative Association chairman who spends a good deal of his time helping to organise money raising events, state funding would be a good idea. We could put our feet up, stop organising membership drives and social events to raise money to pay for our campaigns. We could ignore what local Conservative think because we wouldn't need their money.
In short, State funding, is the best way to kill local democracy.
Why doesn't Hayden suggest Gift Aid, as already permited for donations to chairties, local churches and other voluntary organisations? That way every pound raised would result in a tax rabate on the tax paid by the contributor.
Apart from that, indeed...
Cameron made no attempt to correct this figure when interviewed from the event by Jon Snow. He just said that Snow would have been able to afford a ticket.
The utter ARROGANCE of these people!
How DARE they grab from us because their supporters are deserting, too tight fisted and/or hypocritical (probably all 3).
It is simple: cut expenditure and limit donations (including the unions). Get party members to fund their personal beliefs with their own money.
It is basically taxpayers subsidising the Ad industry to peddle sanctimonious, disingenuous political clap-trap.
How about a poll tax that even a begger can afford.
£1 per vote in the respective box of any party, at the polling station, on the night.
The state never even sees the cash or counts it. ( dont cry Gordon )
If the vote is not worth a £1 to the individual perhaps its better they dont vote at all.
A very large charity box could be supplied for those not so keen on letting any of the gready,lieing, bastards, get their hands on any more of their cash.
Only problem I see is that New Labour would have a shit time getting its stash back to head office, before one of their socialist "brothers" nicked it all.
"2. Jane Ellison is not a euro fanatic"
Guido disagrees.
rise of US style 401k "political campaign groups"
401k is a Section of the Internal Revenue Code relating to Defined Contribution Money Pension Plans - Gordon has raided those in the UK already
Would it be asking too much for the parties to devise policies that would boost membership and, therefore, income?
Y A-B made some good points, but her approach and body language [legs crossed, arms folded] weren't really going to convince anyone of her view.
Contrast that with the delectable Baroness Helena of Kennedy, QC with that lovable scamp, Jeff Randall.
Her scrumminess let Jeff have his say, and Helena then had the approach of a loving headmistress who knows the boy has given the wrong answer and is labouring under the misapprehension that Scotland is a county north of Yorkshire.
She wants to make sure that the boy is put on the right track, so that he doesn't go through life with the mistake uncorrected, but she takes care not to dampen his enthusiasm and energy for education, his thirst for learning and his quest for knowledge. Superb stuff.
Just a shame that 'mogadon' is the presenter - couldn't they get the likes of Sarah Montague or Eddie Mair to do the show instead ?
So in other words, the party system which has for so long been a part of our democracy is being nationalised!! Yet another example of the collapse of political integrity in this country.
Steven Bainbridge
http://stevenbainbridge.blogspot.com
Make a stand Iain. Withdraw from the a-list in protest.
Your media profile would surely ensure that your principled stand would be widely reported.
Does this all suggest that politics is in need of a root and branch reform? :)
if this does come about there should be
a. a box to tick on the ballot paper if you do not wish to make a contribution.
b. The money raised would not go directly to the party, but would be held by a body indpendent of the political party. The Political party would then have to apply to withdraw the money giving full explanation as to the reason, the political party would then have to return receipts etc.
I worry very much on the effect of this inside the Party locally and on the greasy poles to preferrement . Already we are in an enviroment of "If the nailt sticks up banged it down", but this will hand more power to the elites in the Party to say, " This is not yours , you just work here".
As if it wasnt` bad enough already.
On the pervious point about it being tax payers money until the tax systemn is untied and visible again even that will help very little . David Cameron has talked about simplfying tax and the sooner the better.
Let us hope he was not stoned at the time.
BTW I love the way Public school boys experiment with drugs .Evryone else just gets on with it .Weeds ( so to speak)
Being paid 30p per vote will merely encourage electoral fraud on a far higher scale than it already is!
Iain,
I'm sure you'd agree with me that the best way to resolve state funding issues is to do what the Power Commission recommended a while ago, and give voters the option of ticking a 2nd box on their ballot paper to indicate which party they want £3 of funding to go to, including a "none of the above" box for those who either disapprove of state funding or don't like any of the parties.
There is an excellent piece on state funding by www.distributionpolitics.co.uk and Sir Hayden Phillips interim report.
Cap it all at the same rate that
Nicolae Ceauşescu ended up paying.
Pricey.
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