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We can fund politics

Jul 15

Posted by James in Elections, Governance, Holyrood, Westminster | Comments off

Thanks for your donation!Last week our friend Andrew Smith did a guest post about the problem of party funding at Holyrood, specifically citing the proportion of the SNP’s funding which comes from Brian Souter. Egregious donors to the larger parties abound, though, and Soutar is just the closest example to home.

Take Michael Brown, who handed the Lib Dems £2.4m he’d acquired through fraud. Last year he started a seven year sentence after being captured in the Dominican Republic: the stolen assets, which the Lib Dems received, have never been returned.

Labour’s examples are less shocking, perhaps – well, almost all the other examples are less shocking – but they’re substantial too. David Abrahams used “three employees as fronts to fund the Labour party nearly £600,000“. Bernie Ecclestone handed over (then withdrew) a £1m donation amidst accusations that the money was tied to an exemption for his pet business, Formula One.

The Tories, well, it’s harder to tell with the Tories, given how central to their purpose it is to skew the rules in favour of big business at our expense. Their policy really does seem to be for sale to the highest bidder.

However, political parties have to be funded. Capping donations and just taking smaller donations from members is one route, but it also limits parties and doesn’t give them an incentive to appeal beyond their base.

At the end of Andrew’s piece he says he doesn’t think anyone is considering public funding, and that he’d opt out if it might fund UKIP (a position he comes back from a bit in the comments).

So what might the alternative be? Why not consider it a tax rebate instead, and add a second form below the existing ballot paper which gives people the opportunity to allocate a pound from their taxes to the party they voted for, or indeed to any other party standing? Or to opt out and have that pound stay with the Treasury if they prefer?

Andrew Rawnsley argued yesterday that the parties would have to become mass organisations again, which is admirable but sounds a bit optimistic. Might this rebate idea not be one small way to rebuild connections (in both directions) between the wider non-joining public and the parties? Might the public feel a bit more invested, and the parties feel a bit more pressure to appeal beyond their base?

The cost would be minimal – even if no-one opted out, the “rebate” from Holyrood 2011 would amount to less than £2m – the turnout was 1,991,051. For a comparison (assuming a final cost of £1.6bn and a road distance of 6.7km), the total cost of this entire scheme for Scotland would be less than the price of ten metres of the unnecessary additional Forth Road Bridge. Yes: the bridge and its roads will cost more than a quarter of a million pounds per metre. Sorry to get sidetracked.

And this kind of sum would be on a convenient scale to fund an election campaign. Take the 2010 UK General Election. 29,687,604 votes cast: £31.5m spent (see 2.3 of the Electoral Commission’s report). Sure, some people would give their “rebate” to parties you or I might find unpleasant, but unpleasant people fund unpleasant parties already, and typically with much larger sums.

Alongside a £5000 cap on donations, this would turn politics over to the public, or at least the electorate (if you don’t vote, your “rebate” goes back to the Treasury, sorry). In a marginal seat where someone’s voting tactically, perhaps they’d donate their £1 to the party they’d really like to see win, and that way that party would be marginally more likely to win next time. It’s no substitute for proportional representation, but it might help ameliorate some of the worst winner-takes-all effects of the current system. Power to the people!

Who pays the piper?

Jul 12

Posted by Guest Blog in Holyrood, Parties, Westminster | 8 Comments

Thanks to Andrew Smith for another guest post. Andrew is a Scottish born communications professional in London, who has previously blogged for us about the referendum campaign and, well, the referendum campaign. You can buy his debut novel here, or read his blog at www.blackberrybanter.wordpress.com.

Bagpipes at WestminsterSince the local tremor from the Falkirk Labour Party’s candidate selection became a political earthquake, the issues of party funding and donations have been at the top of the news agenda. Following a difficult week, Ed Miliband had what may have been his best PMQs outing to date, during which he reiterated support for the largest overhaul of the Labour/Trade Union relationship for a generation and called for an individual donor limit of £5000.

SNP MP Pete Wishart berated the entire spectacle of PMQs, tweeting “Hope the Scottish people are observing this rotten Westminster and concluding that we want nothing whatsoever to do with it”, which made me think about whether funding is a Westminster issue or a UK wide one. I tweeted him back to ask if the SNP favours a cap on political donations, but he must have missed it as he didn’t reply: funnily enough neither did any of the other four SNP MPs who I tweeted the same question to.

It could be because they were all away from their desks all day, but the SNP isn’t exactly free of funding controversy. In both 2007 and 2011 roughly 50% of their total election spend was provided by the same person: Brian Souter. Souter’s views on homosexuality caused many to question if he was the sort of person any party should take money from, but that aside there were other issues. The party was accused of changing transport policy shortly after the first donation was made, to one that favoured Souter, and then the Scottish Government nominated him for a knighthood shortly after his second one. In both cases the SNP has denied influence from Souter.

This isn’t an anti-SNP point: their defence is presumably that elections cost money and that Labour has an in-built financial advantage due to union funding. This is fair, their spending in 2005 and 2010 general elections was far lower (£193k and £315k compared to the 1,141,662 in 2011). However, with the possibility of Westminster being reformed it won’t be long before someone suggests Holyrood should have the same debate.

With that in mind I have included some of the points I think are important:

  • The 2007 election saw the SNP outspending Labour by over £250,000 and winning by a solitary seat. Every penny counts!
  • In 2011 the SNP spent £57,449 more on their election campaign than Labour, Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Green Party put together.
  • With only £131,938 in 2011, the SGP had the lowest spend for any party with MSPs. Smaller parties lose out on free promotion through TV interviews etc, but if they are outspent by the bigger ones to this extent they are squeezed on the ground too.

Is this a bad thing? I think it is. When wealth distorts elections it only favours the status quo. In one fine swoop Labour has proposed cutting its own trade union funding (quite rightfully in my opinion) and made its position on a donations cap clear. Labour’s future corporate funding will only materialise if it looks like they have any chance of power, and in that instance it raises questions about why business only back winners – what do they want in exchange?

I don’t think anyone is suggesting state funding of political parties (I would ask the government if I could opt out if even 1p found its way into UKIP’s coffers) but in a modern, progressive, 21st century democracy like Scotland it seems like something should be done to address the imbalance.

Vince: your P45 is in the post

Jul 10

Posted by James in Parties, Westminster | 3 Comments

Royal Mail binAll too often since 2010, the left has found itself on the back foot: protesting after fees for English students got trebled (thanks Nick!), protesting after the bedroom tax was introduced, and protesting after the most vulnerable got handed over to the unmerciful ATOS. None of the Coalition’s assaults on the poor and the public services they rely upon have yet been overturned this way, important though protest is.

The occasional win, on the other hand, like the 38 Degrees-led campaign against forestry privatisation in England, came because people took action beforehand. Half a million signatures, some useful polling, and some very vocal pressure on MPs did the job.

With that in mind, surely Royal Mail privatisation must be the next target?

Who, outside this neoliberal coalition, thinks Royal Mail would be better off in private hands? It’s a profitable business, which either reduces taxes/borrowing or allows Ministers to spend more, depending on taste. The competition to which it’s exposed would be ramped up, jeopardising the universal service.

We should be bringing key public assets (starting with the rail network) back into public ownership, not repeating the mistakes of the 1980s and 1990s. As John Harris says, at a Westminster level “we are largely being ruled by people who seem to think that modern government should amount to a school play about the Thatcher years”.

So what kind of action can be taken? The CWU have set up a campaign called Save Our Royal Mail, and I would advise you to sign the petition here. I don’t want to hear about how this will be fine if only we vote Yes in 2014: by then the damage would be done.

But petitions are unlikely to be enough. The CWU will also ballot for industrial action at the end of this month (Green motion in support of that ballot), and everyone who cares about the future of public services in this country, whatever its borders, should support strike action if their members back it. The unions will have a key role to play in defending their workplace and our vital service.

What else can be done? Personally I like the idea of using any Freepost addresses for the Tory Party or their hypocritical Lib Dem sidekicks. Notable Tory blogger Iain Dale supported a Labour campaign that made First Capital Connect pay to be complained about in this way, back in 2008. Roads protesters used to send the companies destroying their environment breeze blocks at their expense. Wouldn’t it be entirely appropriate if Tory or Lib Dem MPs got sent weighty but unthreatening objects to their Freepost addresses, along with mock P45 letters they will have paid to receive, letters which explain why they should think again on this?

A sickness at the heart of Westminster

Jun 30

Posted by James in Health, Holyrood, Westminster | 2 Comments

nhs-cameronThe Tories’ latest wheeze to head the racists in blazers off at the pass is this: to make Johnny or Joanna Foreigner have to pay for his or her treatment on the NHS, unless it’s an A&E visit.

Well, it’s not that new, but it’s back in the papers, and it sounds like Mr Hunt has spent another ten minutes thinking how it’d work. Time for a crass press release!

As the Guardian points out, the cost of the problem they’re trying to solve is £33m out of £109,000m – less than a thirtieth of one percent of the English NHS budget.

Actually, is it even right to call the English system “the NHS” any more? It feels like spin, or perhaps nostalgia: like the sad wee British Rail logo you still get on your tickets even through the system has been smashed into pseudo-competing franchises to be run by anyone’s national rail company except our own. But I digress.

This may be a gross over-simplification, but imagine NHS services as a line that stretches from the poor souls stretchered into A&E after a motorway pile-up at one end through to the most elective of treatments at the other. If the Tories erect a wall just beyond A&E, they ensure non-British nationals go untreated for infectious diseases they currently can see a GP for. Sure, if Johnny in this case is Mohammed Al-Fayed they’ll go to Harley Street or BUPA. But most foreign residents are working, studying, looking for work.

And deciding not to treat those people when they’re sick means they’ll spread disease to others, leading to more unhappiness and taking folk away from their jobs. And costing the NHS more. They may get sicker and sicker until they do eventually get rolled into A&E: now they’re much more difficult to treat. Again, costing the NHS more. This stupid idea isn’t even likely to save taxpayers money. In fact, immigrants are taxpayers too: VAT in every case, often income tax, stamp duty or VED, all sorts.

Part of the reason the NHS has been so totemic for voters is that it treats everyone. It’s one of the few bits of actual socialism to have put down proper roots across much of the political spectrum. But the Orange Book Lib Dems and the ideological and racist austerity-addicts of the modern Tory party want to undermine that universality. The mid-market press and Nigel Farage have laid the groundwork for them to start this assault by not treating foreigners. How long before “shirkers” get treated after “strivers”?

Not long, perhaps. There’s already a campaign going on the right (with all sorts of misleading and emotive propaganda in it) to start charging for GP visits. It’s to reduce pressure on them, honest! Nonsense. It’s to ration healthcare away from the poor. Would the worried well middle classes be put off by a fiver charge? Unlikely. Would the seriously ill poor be deterred? Sometimes. And so the pressure on GP’s surgeries would fall, perhaps, but offset again by extra pressure on A&E. And at the price of a fair system that treats people according to need, not income.

Thank goodness this vicious and counterproductive idea would only apply to the English health service, although I’m starting to have the first twinges of anxiety when I visit England: what will happen if I get ill? A taste of the same concern people get when they visit America: will my travel insurance cover me? Will I come back a million in debt for having broken my leg?

It baffles me that English voters appear to be swallowing this stuff: competition in the NHS, patchworks of privatised services, bureaucratic chaos. Shouldn’t this lead to protests and a collapse in the polls? Perhaps it’s because Labour aren’t opposing it with the kind of fierce clarity that led their much more admirable predecessors to set the NHS up in the first place. In fact, they were making the same sort of argument before they got chucked out in 2010.

Health is one of those areas where the SNP have got it broadly right, for my money, and one where devolution is saving Scotland from horrors no-one foresaw during the 1997 referendum campaign. Westminster may have a sickness at its heart, but whenever English voters turn against market control of health, hopefully Scotland will have a system that they can point to and say – that! That’s what we want back!

pic from Liam

Denying prisoners the vote: who benefits?

Jun 10

Posted by James in Crime, Elections, Holyrood, Westminster | 2 Comments

Prison votingWhy would any politician want to deny prisoners the vote? Is it purely because they think it plays well with the less liberal parts of the media (i.e. almost all of it)? Or might there be a better reason? There are all sorts of rationales for the use of prison in the justice system. Are any of them consistent with denying prisoners the franchise as well as their liberty?

1. Public safety. This is the most important one for me. If someone has grievously breached society’s proper moral codes – by which I mean typically premeditated or serious offences against the person – I support using prison to protect society. Why, at the top end of those offences, should the innocent public be exposed to the risk of a repeat offence? I prefer the risk that someone who might actually never offend again still doesn’t get out. You hopefully know the sort of offences I mean here.

So does denying prisoners a vote protect the public? Hardly. What risk is there to the public of further crime from prisoners simply voting? Essentially it’s the same as the threat posed to a mixed-sex married couple by their same-sex neighbours getting married, i.e. none. What’s more, it’s hard to see how they could change anything substantial electorally. There are just over 8,000 prisoners in Scottish jails. A little over 100 per constituency. If they all voted they’d make up 0.4% of the Scottish electorate. A poll I can’t find suggested prisoners would be more likely to vote BNP than the rest of us – and it may not be surprising to turn it on its head and say that BNP voters are more likely to commit crimes – but that’s not a reason to prevent all prisoners voting.

2. Rehabilitation. This is an area where the theory and practice of imprisonment seem miles apart, but can barring prisoners from voting really help them turn their lives around, prepare them for life outside, and reduce reoffending? Actually, the evidence is quite the opposite. It doesn’t seem realistic to say allowing prisoners a vote would have a major impact, but it might have some.

3. Deterrence/retribution. Shall we agree that even the most hardened political hack wouldn’t be put off from committing a crime because of the loss of the franchise? It’s hardly an enormous punishment when you’ve already been deprived of your liberty.

4. Restitution. Nothing here either (cf community services, repayment of stolen money). No victim sees any practical benefit from an offender being denied a ballot.

The best the no-vote side are left with (at Holyrood this means the SNP, Labour and the Tories), as far as I can see, is a reference to some abstract moral principle – that prisoners must forgo any contribution to deciding society’s future, and that when they’ve “paid their debt” they can take part again, irrespective of the absence of any practical benefit to society. It’s precisely the kind of vague and unfalsifiable pseudo-moral hand-waving and hand-wringing certain sections of the media love.

So, conversely, why should we let them vote? First, the minor rehabilitation effects noted above. Many repeat offenders already feel alienated from society, disenfranchised in more ways than one. Do we really want to tell people, especially those who will be released, that society thinks their views are irrelevant? I’d like to believe that allowing prisoners to vote might encourage politicians to consider their views on prison conditions, but the small number of these potential voters (versus the influence of the populist press) makes that unlikely.

Above all, though, we’re meant to be a democracy. If we start going down this road we end up with the approach some American states take, whereby felons are barred from voting forever. We live in a discriminatory society, with a justice system more inclined to prosecute and imprison the poor or protesters than so-called “white collar criminals”, and preventing prisoners from having a say extends this discrimination further for no real benefit. Democracies let their citizens vote, not just the approved subset of the population. It shouldn’t take the European courts to make our governments honour this principle.