Cash for Influence Scandal

There has been fresh controversy for the Conservative Party recently. Today David Cameron revealed the names of the people who dined with him in his Downing Street apartment. It sounds perfectly innocent, right? Except that if you wanted to dine there it would put you out £250,000 and all this money would go to the Conservative Party. This comes as a result of the revelations in the Sunday Times that Peter Cruddas, The Conservative Party Treasurer, was filmed claiming that a donor could buy access to the Prime Minister and discuss policy with him for a mere £250,000! Cruddas immediately resigned and Cameron launched an internal inquiry into the issue. The Labour Party has attacked the PM in parliament today (despite the PM being absent),  Ed Miliband said “This is an inquiry into the Conservative Party, by the Conservative Party, for the Conservative Party. It is a whitewash and everyone knows it. We need a proper independent inquiry appropriate to the gravity of what is at stake.”

This crisis has reopened the issue surrounding Party funding, of the options on the table are the following:

1. Keep the system as it is.

2. State sponsorship of political parties

3. A cap on donations

I prefer the first one as, although the two latter seem better at first, they both have major flaws. In countries that have state sponsorship of political parties they also increased levels of corruption. There is also the issue of which parties do you fund? How small do you fund, what about parties with seats in Westminster, or seats in your council or maybe a certain percentage of vote at the general elections. It would have too many difficulties in implementation. The latter is possibly worse, Sir Christopher Kelly has a report that suggests a cap on party donations at either £50,000 pa or £10,000 pa,  Kelly prefers the latter. These would have massive implications for both major parties; on a £50,000 cap the Conservatives would lose 48% of their funding, whereas Labour would lose 81% of theirs, on the other hand if the £10,000 limit was set this would mean the Conservatives lose 76% of their funding and Labour would lose an astonishing 91% of their funding.

The reason for the Labour Party being funded by so many high donations is because of its links with the Unions. For example, Unite the Union is where 30% of Labour’s fund comes from. Labour can easily argue that the likes of trade unions should have a special exemption made for them and other similar organisations. Basically, the Unions are owned by their members, so the amount a union can donate should be £50,000 per member of the union, that way it would be fairer. This could also benefit Conservatives as the same could be applied to companies; if a company is owned by two people, the company should be able to donate £100,000 as two people are at the head.

I believe party finances should be left alone as it could hurt democracy very badly if Labour and the Conservatives lost most of their funding.