I’m over my nuclear-powered loss of confidence in George Monbiot now: he’s right about too much else, and there are too few other people in the mainstream media making those arguments. But last week’s piece by him on party funding was well-intentioned but seriously off-beam.
He was responding to a 2011 report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life which (Monbiot’s summary) recommended that “donations should be capped at an annual £10,000, the limits on campaign spending should be reduced, and public funding for political parties should be raised” – the last of which should be “a state subsidy based on the size of their vote at the last election”.
Instead, Monbiot argues, the only source of income a party could have would be membership fees and public matched funding for those. All parties would have to charge the same for membership, and he suggests £50 per annum. I’m a supporter of some form of state funding (of course, it already happens, largely in the form of Short Money: it’s just not transparent), but this model wouldn’t work.
As an incidental loophole, is he really suggesting that parties couldn’t charge for things like fringe sponsorship at conferences or even stalls? You might find sponsored fringe events distasteful, but charging for stalls surely isn’t unreasonable. And what about merchandise? I used to love buy Scottish Green Party umbrellas all the time, given that I seemed incapable of retaining one for more than a month. Would you ban that? How much is a fair markup on merch before it’s a bannable donation?
Then there’s the £50 rate. Again, looking at the Green position, we tier our membership fees: from £5 for students and the under-18s, then from £12 to £72 by income. Everyone with an income under £40,000 pays less than Monbiot’s figure. Should we be required to scrap that system? I quite like it. Or should we get less state support when a person on a low income joins the party?
Finally, such a system puts a big boundary around parties. You can be as enthusiastic a supporter as you like, but if you’re not also the kind of person who joins, you can’t give financial support. You can deliver leaflets for a party but you can’t chip in £100 to get more leaflets printed. It would even more clearly emphasise that politics belongs to the most committed.
The Committee’s original idea strikes me as a bit closer to an ideal model. In addition to caps on donations and reduced expenditure limits, they talk about a cost of 50p per elector per year, or a taxpayer contribution equivalent to between £1.50 and £3 per vote (the lower level for devolved institutions: the higher for Westminster, and the difference with the 50p figure is turnout), made in line with actual votes.
The problem with this is it does continue to divide parties by existing income. If you can’t afford the deposits it takes to stand in constituencies, either for Holyrood or Westminster, you can’t get any matched funding. That assumes the devolved figure would be for constituency votes rather than regional votes – you can be damn sure the rotating parties of government would argue for that approach. Also, for as long as we have any first-past-the-post element, a direct per-vote donation would contaminate people’s democratic choices. If I lived in a Tory/SNP or a Tory/Labour marginal where Greens couldn’t afford to stand, I’d be definitely want to cast an anti-Tory constituency vote. But then, despite being a Green member, I’d be funding one of two parties who are already massively well-funded. That’d stick in the throat, and it’d probably tempt me to abstain.
Personally, I’d still allow donations but with a low cap, perhaps £500 per annum, and I back some of the other changes proposed last year. But on the specific question of state funding, why not let the people decide directly? When you vote, you get a second sheet: who do you want to “donate” your public funds to? Show a list of all parties elected at any level in your area, and let the people decide who deserves a hand.
#1 by Andrew Seale on November 5, 2012 - 1:21 pm
A cap of £500 per annum sounds quite high to me. There will not be many people willing, or even able, to donate that kind of money to a political party. Therefore, it still allows those with deeper pockets to buy more influence than anyone else.
Donating £100 to fund a stall does sound reasonable enough, but that is still £100 that not everyone in the country has as disposable income. If you allow donations, you allow people with more money to buy more influence. You allow them to ensure that their views get improved coverage.
There are issues with the current system ,and the dominance of established parties, and there are also practical problems that you raise about the purchase of party merchandise. But I feel that allowing any form of donations is a fundamental flaw in our democracy.
We say we abide by a principle of one person, one vote, but the combination of the first past the post election system and private donations so thoroughly distorts this that I am surprised turnout is not far lower than it already is. Private donations, to a degree, disenfranchise the poor.
#2 by Angus McLellan on November 5, 2012 - 2:30 pm
If £500 sounds a lot to you, you’re probably going to reckon the value of donated time quite low. Other people – me for example – would think that a donation of £100 was insignificant when weighed against the effort involved in a day’s leafleting or similar. So, I wonder, are you proposing a cap on volunteering by non-members?
#3 by Andrew Seale on November 5, 2012 - 2:52 pm
In short, I don’t think you can treat time the same as money.
The thing that makes the donation of time different from the donations of money is that there is a far lower limit of the difference amounts that any two individuals donate.
So person A might donate several hours a week and person B might not be able to donate any, but when we look at the vast differences in wealth that people are able to donate it pales in comparison.
Ideally, a person should not be able to gain greater influence than anyone else, but restricting the right of people to volunteer would be draconian.
Incidentally, I didn’t say anything on the value of a person’s time; this is going to be hugely variable depending on personal circumstance. For example, parents will be more restricted (generally) in terms of time they can give up to volunteer.
I suppose the difference for me is that if a person gives up an evening and then doesn’t like the direction of the party, they won’t give up their next evening. When someone writes a cheque, it is psychologically different; they expect a ‘return’, and then if the party changes an opinion, they feel that a ‘product’ has let them down.
#4 by No_Offence_Alan on November 5, 2012 - 7:43 pm
I disagree with spending/donation limits at all, so long as the source of donations is transparent.
Newspapers can spend unlimited amounts of money writing rubbish about politics. Political parties should not have one hand tied behind their backs when trying to counter them.
I disagree with further state funding, too – it is vital that parties are independent and not “quangoes”.
#5 by James on November 5, 2012 - 8:18 pm
Well then you would see a continuation of a politics that favours the rich over the poor. It’s not exactly a complex equation.
#6 by FormerChampagneSocialist on November 5, 2012 - 9:06 pm
The thing I don’t understand is why political parties need so much funding in the first place. After all, elections are paid for publicly (except the deposit), the press and tv give them free publicity, most activists are volunteers…..what on earth are they doing with the money?!
I do agree that there should be a cap on donations. £500 a year sounds OK to me.There should also be a rule that only human beings who are registered to vote can make donations ie companies, pressure groups and trade unions should not be permitted to donate. This would massively improve policy-making by making parties re-engage with the silent majority rather than with the strident minority and/or those with a profit motive or other vested interests.
There should certainly be no state funding. The state already wastes a huge amount of my cash. I don’t care if it’s only 50p. If is was up to me I’d scrap Short money too.
I’m surprised there hasn’t been more discussion about the origin of funding Scottish elections in general and the referendum in particular. Surely it isn’t right that people outside Scotland are able to fund participation in these? I find it amazing that people accept this obviously undemocratic state of affairs. Even the SNP seem to be OK with it!
FCS
#7 by Topher Dawson on November 6, 2012 - 8:17 am
Speaking as someone who has just resigned from the SNP and is about to join the Greens I approve of the wage related subscriptions even though it’s going to cost me more. I’d be happy with a £500 cap on donations though I can see it would not be hard to get around it by splitting a larger amount between many apparent donors. I’m a bit chary of public funding; what do the Nordic countries do?
#8 by James on November 6, 2012 - 11:30 am
Good question – paging Dom Hinde.
#9 by Indy on November 6, 2012 - 11:01 am
If a party can’t come up with £500 deposit it suggests they have no members and no organisation. Political success starts at the grassroots. Once you have as little as a dozen people willing to give their time, to organise fundraisers, to deliver leaflets, to chap doors etc then you can campaign on a serious level. You don’t need massive amounts of cash.
Where the big money comes in handy is when a party is actually going for government but before you get to that stage it is all down to the volunteers. You start by trying to come 3rd instead of 4th, then 2nd instead of 3rd. By doing that you raise your profile, you establish yourselves as being in contention and you will attract the big backers.
I wouldn’t be against a cap on big donations provided there was state-matched funding to compensate for it. Indeed I think that would be an improvement. But I don’t think it should be linked to votes – that just entrenches parties where they are – but to members. A small party could focus on building up membership more easily than building up votes. And then one leads to another – the more members you have, the more you can campaign, the more votes you will get.
#10 by James on November 6, 2012 - 11:30 am
It’s not about just finding £500, it’s about finding £36,000 at Holyrood. That would have been more than a quarter of the whole budget I had to play with. I really think 100 signatures per constituency saying you’re fit to stand is a better test than money. And for all the “state contribution to political parties” opposition, I wonder how much parties and independents contribute to the state through lost deposits..
#11 by Indy on November 6, 2012 - 1:11 pm
You can run a whole constituency campaign for £1,500 including an intro leaflet as well as election address. I’ve done it!
I think the key here is that you are looking at it all being done centrally? In the SNP constituencies pay for their own campaigns. There are rich and poor constituencies of course so there is a certain amount of redistribution of funds via HQ but the basic model is local campaigns are self-funded. HQ pays for the extras – call centre, electoral database & staff support etc plus providing national leaflets/newspaper. But each constituency pays its own deposit, pays for its own intro leaflet, election address etc.
#12 by Euan on November 6, 2012 - 2:13 pm
1,893 lost deposits in the 2010 General Election according to this site (http://www.politicsresources.net/area/uk/candidates.htm) so £946,500 to the State.
One issue with linking funding to membership numbers is that it creates a huge incentive to game the system – create a few more members, get more money. At least linking it to votes uses an independent measure.
Andrew Seale thinks a cap of £500 is too high but consider the difference between someone volunteering “several hours a week” (say 5 hours) and someone unable to volunteer. We could take the minimum wage as a proxy for the value of those hours to the individual (opportunity cost) – actually as volunteering tends to mean giving up free time, the individual may consider the marginal cost to be even higher – then just 5 hours a week on average is over £1600. If the party couldn’t get volunteers, that’s what they would have to pay at the minimum wage to replicate the effort (mind you, some just get “interns” to do it!)
BTW on the subject of deposits, they have actually become cheaper. The current system was set up in 1985 at £500 and 5% of the vote. Had the deposit been increased in line with inflation or earnings growth, depending on which measure you use, that £500 deposit would be about £1250 today.
#13 by Dominic Hinde on November 6, 2012 - 2:19 pm
My area of expertise is Sweden, where there is a national pot of money divided up amongst the parties from a democracy fund. It goes roughly by size, but the Swedish Greens for example get around four per cent of the total pot for running the party, plus another one per cent for producing leaflets and material with the aim of encouraging democratic debate.
This is seperate from parliamentary money, but as a result they can afford to run a political staff in stockholm with twenty or so people, including fully paid up convenors for their youth wings.
It is also possible for political parties to organise educational seminars and get money from the state on issues they feel are important to them. They can also use public buildings for meetings and lectures at little cost.
#14 by Kieran Wild on November 6, 2012 - 4:22 pm
James, we passed a motion at the last conference to have £5 a year membership fees for those earning under £10k.