Party Funding – another try to get us to pay for politicing
In today’s Guardian, Andrew McDonald (who stepped down as chief executive of Ipsa this week), attempts to persuade us that we should pay for political parties:
And yes, any solution will require a significant increase in public funding of parties. Of course the taxpayer funding will be unpopular, but surely it is preferable to the next scandal over party donations and the further erosion of trust in our political system.
Guardian 3 April 2014, Let the public pay for political parties
No, they should take their own medicine and, as they tell us, “cut their cloth to fit”. They need to cut their spending, cut unnecessary advertising, and cut swish election budgets. They should go back to the style of campaigning in the 1960s when candidates campaigned face to face with public debate of issues instead of “projecting their prospective presidents” with expensive leaders tours and “photo-opportunities”. New (low) donation and spending limits should be strictly applied with criminal sanctions against donors, party officials, candidates and agents who breach them.
After all a General Election is only a few unemployed politicians looking for a job – I don’t give much support to the millions of unemployed looking for jobs, why should I feather-bed these rogues?
Even if I did fund their damned elections, I would – along with most of the population – see no direct benefit, as outside the marginals, our votes do not count and have no effect.
Outside the marginals 
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