On Thursday’s Question Time the Tory Alun Duncan ruled out his support for the state funding of political parties, but is state funding a price worth paying for a level playing field in the political process?
It was this Labour Government that brought in the legislation to create the Electoral Commission and strengthen transparency in the political process, and even now the Tories refuse to make all their accounts available for public scrutiny.
With the current donation issues facing the Labour Party, is it time that political parties are funded by the state? Some have suggested that political parties be funded based on their proportion of the vote, though I would like to see parties funded by the state based on the number of members they have in addition to a contribution from trade unions for the members that are also members of trade unions where those trade unions approve.
At the moment to run a successful election campaign the amount of money needed prevents new and smaller parties of exerting their influence on the outcome of an election. Multimillionaire Lord Ashcroft is exerting a disproportionate influence on politics through currently bankrolling the Tory Party. State funding would prevent this shameful ‘maluse’ of private capital to gain personal influence.
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