For decades on end, poor old Polly Toynbee has been banging the drum for state funding of political parties. Mercifully, she stands no chance of ever getting it.
Meanwhile, Peter Hitchens makes some interesting points.
But it is laughable to suggest that a party "speaks for no one" when it is funded by the small voluntary donations of millions of working taxpayers in this country, donations pursuant to legislation enacted while its and their bitterest enemy was Prime Minister.
Or when it has the 200 seats in the House of Commons that Labour and the Conservatives will certainly each retain.
But it is laughable to suggest that a party "speaks for no one" when it is funded by the small voluntary donations of millions of working taxpayers in this country, donations pursuant to legislation enacted while its and their bitterest enemy was Prime Minister.
Or when it has the 200 seats in the House of Commons that Labour and the Conservatives will certainly each retain.
We shall see how much either UKIP or the Green Party matters on the day after the General Election.
The Greens have no appeal whatever to almost the entire core, or even habitual, Labour vote.
Too Posh To Vote Labour Parties are forever coming and going, and the Greens have no roots in any part of the Labour Movement.
Too Posh To Vote Labour Parties are forever coming and going, and the Greens have no roots in any part of the Labour Movement.
Even the previously craven media can scarcely be bothered to report today's Walter Mitty intervention by the half-forgotten Nigel Farage.
He is on course to take fewer votes than a stand-up comedian in character, exactly as if he were to be beaten by the candidate of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.
He is on course to take fewer votes than a stand-up comedian in character, exactly as if he were to be beaten by the candidate of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party.
Where people get the idea that this Election is "unpredictable" or "a lottery", I cannot begin to imagine. It is neither.
On the matter of party funding, while you would never think it to look at him, Ed Miliband's record is that of a very ruthless man.
The incoming Labour Government needs to ban all personal donations to political parties above the political levy of £3:50 per year, and to ban corporate donations outright.
In the first Queen's Speech. Entrenched in time for the General Election.
No cross-party consensus? There will be no cross-party consensus for a Labour Government, anyway. Nor was there any cross-party consensus for the Thatcher anti-trade union legislation.
Thatcher had a chance to abolish Labour's funding in 1983 as Peter Hitchens says, but chose to save the party. Interesting. "Voluntary" it is not.
ReplyDeleteYou missed the while point. Hitchens blog explains Labour and Tory retain support because they're kept on life support by guaranteed broadcast time proportianate to their past popularity and unofficial state fun funding.
He was referring to the policies of UKIP and the Greens-both of which represent the real disagreements between people better than the Westminster elite.
The two main parties represent nobody in terms of their policies. It's just that in a two party system propped up by the taxpayer and the BBC, it's hard to persuade enough people to abandon them.
It is voluntary to anyone who can fill in a basic form.
DeleteIf you believe that little urban myth about Thatcher and the levy (Hitchens certainly did not originate it), then you are even younger than I had thought. And that, in its way, is quite a feat.
People are about to have the chance to elect hundreds of MPs from UKIP and the Greens, neither of which is exactly starved of coverage. Let's see what happens.
Businesses and trade unions tare both entitled to seek and finance political influence. But only under the following conditions, laid out by Peter Hitchens.
ReplyDelete""Trade unions and businesses to be allowed to contribute (but only locally, not nationally) to political parties only after open postal ballots of their members or shareholders, such ballots to be repeated every five years and to require a threshold of (I suggest) 40% of members or shareholders before they can be considered valid.""
Then we'd see how many "millions of working taxpayers" give "voluntary donations" to Labour.
And indeed how many company shareholders voluntarily donate to the Tories.
There are already regular ballots for this, by law. Extending the requirement to shareholders used to be branded "Loony Left".
Delete