The parties are asking us for a lifeline - well, let them sweat - Sunday Times - Times Online
A nice piece in The Times Online on party funding, and why it must not be done by the State. Even though rather a lot of it is already done by the state:
almost half their gross revenue already comes from the state. At Westminster opposition parties receive £5.5m a year for parliamentary offices, including aides, researchers and spin doctors. Since 2000 a further £2m has been added for “policy development”, whatever that means. MPs get gyms, discounts, freebies and trips galore. They are civil servants and pay no Vat. Their travel is free and their second homes (and in the case of some ministers, third ones) are subsidised. They recently voted themselves pension plans of stupefying generosity.He goes on to show how it was the power grab from the centre, making local activists powerless, that instigated the cash crisis in the parties. And so it will only be localisation, and power returning to a local level, that can ever truly solve it.
The parties also get an estimated £80m of free letter post, conference security and television propaganda. Even Sinn Fein gets £584,000 a year in cash for “parliamentary allowances”, despite refusing to turn up or even take the oath of allegiance. The money is described as “an act of goodwill”.
posted by chris at 4/09/2006 10:19:00 pm
3 Comments:
Though it might be a contradiction, I'd be all for charging the parties for all or most of these things. In fact I was thinking last week that maybe the parties should be paying for MP's salaries and expenses too. Even if their funding came from the state, they'd probably use it differently if they had to cover all these things out of it.
I totally agree with your other comment though, that if we go for state funding and do it badly it could make things worse. And as you say, with the people who are in power now or are likely to be in future, that's a virtual certainty.
That would at least make them more careful about the over generous benefits packages that all MPs enjoy. However I would still worry that he who pays the piper calls the tune, with the parties paying for everything that would lead to the back benchers being even more slavishly lobby fodder than they are now. It is a tricky question, but some part of the solution must be for them to be paid less (as they are unaffordable) and do less, that is produce less legislation, but do it better.
I mentioned this to my inlaws over the weekend (they're active members of a constituency party). They liked the suggestion and thought that the MP's salary should be paid specifically by the local constituency party - not the central office. That sounded like a good refinement to me. Although as you say to some extent that just moves the question of who pays down a level where it would be harder to police.
Post a Comment
<< Home