Warsi: Tories will oppose plans for more state funding of political parties

Scrobs...

Why can't these people just start a simple Excel spreadsheet, with two columns.

Col 1 - Name of donor
Col 2 - Amount

If they're really clever, they could also show a total, but that would mean asking someone to help them, so I suppose it's too much hassle.

Roy

At last a correct word of surprising precision and logic for this awful funding policy. But why not more of this making sense, why not a few well chosen words on other topics? Topics that the people are waiting in vain to hear.

Vir Cantium

So Warsi isn't as useless as she seems then.

I trust the Party is against state funding in principle (except, presumably, short money), and isn't just objecting to the amounts proposed.

Geoff M

Come on warsi-get a grip!!! since when do you or your party listen to the people.We were appalled that you wont give us a referendum on our membership of the euoviet.

cuffleyburgers

Its been a while since a politico said something I agreed with - incredible.

Mind you she didn't make the obvious point that it is the party system that is at the root of the rottenness of our political system, and in countries where the party system is even stronger, ie where PR is used, then they have even rottener systems.

You could argue that Germany has PR and is not particularly rotten but you'd have to admit that their government took them into the EURO against the will of the people which has led to the current appalling mess.

The members of government's first loyalty has to be to the voters and not some party machine.

And the only way to achieve this is to reduce the scope of activity of government, a completely new power structure is required and a general expectation that the role of government is a rather limited and sorry thing.

strapworld

But, is she saying that they are only against state provision for political parties 'At a time when the country is facing the current economic climate'? OR against the idea of State Provision?

Be careful. Fork tongues are about again, in my humble opinion.

The Conservatives, under Cameron, are becoming worse than Brown for attempting to hoodwink the people.

John Bracewell

There are 2 main things people do not like about the way Parties may be funded:
1. That disinterested people should have their tax money diverted into Party coffers.
2. That people/organisations who donate large sums to a Party may be given preferential treatment.
So, the only thing that needs to be done is to cap donations by people/organisations to a specified (small) sum.

john

Of all the arguments saying that it is a waste of money is the most ludicrous. If it reduces the influence of vested interests outside of the electorate it can only be a good thing.
I would have thought it might be difficult to police in regards of stopping other sources of funding.

Heartless P.

Let this be but the start of a rigourous examination of not only funding, but what happens to other state funding that finds it way into nefarious channels, for instance, the poppy-burning brigade and other parasites.

Swiss Bob

A disgusting idea. The reason they have no money is that none of them are representing what people want.

Try some policies that people want and they might join your party and pay a sub. Until then get your hands out of the people's pockets, bloody mafia.

AY

Warsi is thing of the past in UK politics.
One should expect lesser and lesser pandering to these dark-minded chaotic lefti-righties, and their owners and controllers in the oil and terror axis.

Now Paul Weston is the head of BFP.
Britain has chance to raise a wholly new, common sense Freiheit-style party - as opposed to the failed present-day realpolitik-multicult parlamentary shrimps, openly delighted by their status as hostages of mob rule on the one side, and slaves of oil sheiks on the other.

Oh and BTW - Unified Europe is very positive idea, if based on such principles and agendas, as respect for truth in education, secular humanism, protection of Western cultural heritage, and the technology-savvy, really idealistic meritocracy - where such slimy nobodies like clegg, cam and warsi will not have chance to be present.

Boudicca

Well that is a welcome statement, if it is both true and adhered to.

Perhaps the fear is that they would have to give public funding to the likes of UKIP, the Greens and the BNP - thus giving them a guaranteed revenue stream.

If a Party is offering the policies people want, then people will contribute or join the Party. That is what is happening with UKIP - our membership is rapidly increasing. Unlike the CONservative Party, which has seen a dramatic fall in membership since the pro-EU Cameron took over.

Dennis Churchill

Normally I am against taxpayers’ money being given to politicians but in this instance I feel anything that reduces the power of interest groups is good for democracy. It would need to be based on membership rather than votes to allow new parties to enter the fray. There would also need to be a cap on total income so that this does not just funds more “Researchers”.
The present situation ,where policies can be bought ,is disgraceful.
No party can be seen to be keen on this idea or their present paymasters might take fright and need to crack the whip.

fergus pickering

John Bracewell, you mean uninterested, don't you? Nobody is disinterested concerning politics.

Mahmud

Oh right, so people are so much happier with having the super-rich controlling their democracy than paying for it themselves. I mean, its a pretty good deal for the billionaires, they pay a few million to keep the parties operating, and get to wreck the economy with impunity and take a 100 billion+ in bailouts from the pockets of the taxpayer. Real smart, Warsi.

Tim R

At last - some sense from the Tories. However, being a cynic, I'm sure this is just a matter of degree and not principle.

Dimoto

Strapworld:

A potential small bone to offer the Libdems (when the time is right), to win their support for scrapping the 50% maybe ?

Liz Brown

so that is an OK we agree then!

Ghengis

Why add bribery to a system which is suficiently corrupt already?

TGF UKIP

£3 bad, two pounds good?

£100m bad, £75m good?

A central belief of the London mob is that the rest of us should pay for their indulgences.

Frank Leader

Instead of £3 pounds per vote: How about one penny for every 100?

Hengist449

The Tories are opposed in principal to state funding for parties because they are opposed to state funding period.
And, more importantly, the vast majority of the time they know they will be in a financial advantage to virtually any other party, because 'big business' will perhaps always look to the Tories to do things for them once in power. A vicious circle if ever there was.
Is this just? Is this democratic? Is it hell, but the day may not be very far away when a new so-called 'right of centre' will come along (I think quite out of the blue) and oust this spineless, double-dealing sham of a party and consign it to political history.

Dennis Churchill

Mahmud
November 12th, 2011 9:57am
It is not so much billionaires as foreign governments working through proxies, including the EU, trade unions, industries such as Windmills Are Us and single issue groups we need to get rid of.

Radford NG

Under Thatcher her party had 1,000,000 members.Multiply by £10 members fee (& many gave more )and add two books of raffle-tickets at £5 each and you get £30,000,000.Thats the way to do it.

Radford NG

That should be 1,500,000 members under Thatcher.

AQ42

If I don't vote, can I have £3?

Tarka the Rotter

Political parties are voluntary organisations where people who feel strongly about issues or ideology (hah hah, not much of THAT around these days!) are free to join. If they thrive, they thrive. If they become moribund and people leave in droves, so be it - they should be allowed to wither and die. The Political Elite have become savvy to the fact that people loathe and despise them and that party membership is dying a death, so they have come up with state funding. This is not only undemocratic, it is also immoral. I say no to the whole idea.

TGF UKIP

Come on James, why don't you tell us how many members the Incredible Shrinking Party has lost over the six years and over the past two in particular.

Ruby Duck

What Tarka said.

We vote for individuals. Ballot papers should not show the party.

Mrs Trellis

Political parties should be funded completely and solely by membership fees only. A fixed fee where every member pays the same (except maybe OAPs etc). The to get the money they need they would have to appeal to a mass membership by doing what those people want them to & any party that didn't would go broke & disappear.

Radford NG

@TGF UKIP----I estimate Conservative membership thus:Tatcher 1,500,000 /Major(1997) 350,000 /Cameron (2006) 336,000 /Wikipedia estimate (2008) 250,000. In 2006 Cameron gained 40% of eligible votes

2trueblue

Corruption will continue whatever is decided. I am against having to pay, i.e. state funded. Membership fees only and capped.

Boudicca

Radford NG
November 12th, 2011 2:02pm

I recall reading somewhere (ConHome I think) that Conservative Party membership is down to 170,000. It would be good to know if toxic Dave has really had such a dramatic impact.

TGF UKIP

Radford NG, thanks for that and I would dearly love to know what membership is down to now. I know that from sheer embarrassment our James isn't going to tell us, but my guess is that it's now below 200k and falling.

The Remittance Man

Aside from guiding the dimmer voters as to where to put their "X" on polling day, political parties serve no public good. The only task they perform is as a support structure and career development tool for politicians.

I don't think tax payers want to see their hard earned cash spunked away on that during a recession or at any other time.

Hexhamgeezer

This, if memory serves, is an old favourite of the Lib Dems.

While it is true that it frees party heirachies from vested interests, at least those interests represent important elements and provide, however imperfectly, other positions or opinions which parties have to account for. We can take it as read that all 3 parties ignore the demos but state funding would liberate them from the only checks or outside influence they feel necessary to address. Freed from any vested interests the pro EU anti democratic cabal of professional politicos as beautifully exemplified by the likes of davenick n'ed would be even further divorced from any requirement to acknowledge the concerns of those not on the dinner West London dinner party circuit.

James

She seems to specifically reject £3 per capita funding of parties - why isn't she rejecting funding outright?

As someone else points out, she only appears to be rejecting funding at this point in time, given the economic circumstances.

David Lindsay

State funding of anything must entail some degree of State control, which can often be necessary and beneficial.

For political parties, however, it would be lethal. Only parties that met the organisational and political requirements of some committee would be able to afford to contest elections.

Imagine who would be on that committee. Well, there you are, then.

David Lindsay

Except that all of this is already the case.

The Big Three, in actuality tiny organisations in the country at large, are already maintained at enormous public expense

The rest is made up by a small number of enormously rich individuals with very specific political agenda economically, socially, culturally and constitutionally.