David Cameron, portraying an amazing amount of insight, once said that after Cash for Honours and the Expenses Scandal lobbying would be the next big problem to engulf Parliament. He might have thought it was dealt with after the Bell Pottiger fiasco, but no. The question of party donations and what is expected in return for those donations is one that is going to haunt Parliament for some time to come.
A video emerged on Sunday of the above mentioned Mr Cruddas saying that for a “premier league” donation of somewhere between £200,000 and £250,000 he could arrange times to sit down and eat with either the Prime Minister or the Chancellor. The Tories immediately went into overdrive. Cruddas resigned, and Cameron not only distanced himself from the affair but promised a full inquiry. Ed Milliband then weighed in for Labour, arguing an internal investigation would be a “whitewash” and demanded a full and proper public investigation.
Since the Conservative party that has been trying to distance itself from the image of a party that only cares about the rich – one reinforced by the budget - Cameron has sensibly grabbed the initiative here by not only releasing the names of all the people who have both donated to the Tories and have been guests of his, but also announcing the formation of a cross party panel chaired by Nick Clegg to look into the issue of donation reform. But whatever the Tories do now, the damage from this has been done.
The obvious way to reform party donations is by making it publicly funded. Set a cap on it and let the each party receive a set amount of tax payers’ money which they can put towards running costs. This would enable the parties to distance themselves from the lobbying industry – as they would no longer need the money – and mean that the Tories would no longer be beholden to Big Business nor Labour to the Trade Unions. It would also benefit the Lib Dems as it would put them on an equal footing with the other parties in terms of funds raised.
Of course it won’t happen. No party would want to limit the amount of funding they can receive as alongside, you know, principles and policies, having a large amount of money – and the ability to raise more than your opponent – is the second best weapon in a political party’s armoury came election time. If they all had the same amount to spend they might have to start making it clear precisely what they would do once in power and what their actually beliefs were in order to get people to vote for them. And they fear that the population isn’t yet ready for that kind of grown up political discussion involving hard choices about the use of limited resources in difficult circumstances.
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