Cleaning Up Politics (23/11/11)














The Committee for Standards in Public Life (CSPL) released a report yesterday with the declared aim of cleaning up politics in the UK.

Good, about time too, because there's much that's still wrong with our system - not least that our politicians make up the rules to suit themselves.

The CSPL report recommends a cap on individual donations of £10,000 from 2015 as a way of reducing the political parties reliance on 'big money' donations.

In return, political parties would get an extra £23 million of taxpayers money - on top of the public funds they already get - so the principle of limited public funding is already well established.

The question is - does a limited injection of additional public money prevent abuse - by encouraging our political system to operate more honestly and transparently?

The CSPL believes that £23 million is a reasonable price to pay - to prevent big private donors using their financial muscle to buy political influence.

And as that comes from an Independent Committee which helped clean up the MPs' expenses scandal then it's good enough for me - money well spent in my view compared to lots of other things public money is wasted on.

In addition to the donations cap trade union members in future will have to positively "opt in" to paying a political levy to the Labour party, if the CSPL gets its way.

As they do already in Northern Ireland, of course.

Im future there would be no more political funds ballots in which less than 10% of the members participate, yet the outcome of such ballots affect every single member.

I heard someone on the TV arguing the other day:

'Trade union members can already opt out of paying the political levy, if they want to, so what's the problem?'

The problem is they should have to jump through unnecessary hoops to stop paying a political levy - filling out forms and writing letters to Head Office - and claiming money back.

What's wrong with asking union members on an individual basis if they want to donate money to a political party?

And if they do, then which one should get their dosh.

In other walks of life that's called freedom of choice - and it seems to be quite popular ,as far as I can tell.

Because the bottom line is that there's no good reason for the choice of trade union members to be restricted to the Labour party and no one else.

Sometimes politics is a dirty old business, but it's one that affects all our lives.

And cleaning up the stables is far too important a task to allow politicians make up the rules to suit themselves.

Popular posts from this blog

SNP - Conspiracy of Silence

LGB Rights - Hijacked By Intolerant Zealots!