Party funding
David Hencke at the Guardian has an interesting piece on the state of funding for the 3 major parties. The sources are largely what you’d expect - state funding, business, wealthy individuals and for Labour the unions. But the bit that really had me nodding my head was Hencke’s final point about the moral, democratic solution to the funding question - return policy making power to ordinary party members. The sad thing is that political decisions being made for the true benefit of the majority seems like an almost impossible dream in the current climate.
Anyways, read the article here.
August 25th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
Hmm…not sure that returning power to the party members will mean that political decisions wil be made for the true benefit of the majority. Currently political party membership is falling, giving power to a diminishing, ideologically (small) minded group is as bad as allowing policies to be decided by the Daily Mail.
Only in the long term would political party policy making be beneficial as party membership (hopefully) increases… but which leader is going to bet on that?!
August 25th, 2006 at 2:40 pm
Surely the reason that party membership’s falling is the lack of influence that ordinary members have. Why be a member when all you get is a tickets to conferences (that you get thrown out of if you try to protest).
I agree it’s not ideal but the key point is that party membership is open to everyone; lobbyists and 6 figure donations aren’t.