So all you want for Christmas is a new political party?

UK politics is in a shocking mess with the two big parties riven by factions, splits and arguments. We have parts of the Conservatives referring to colleagues as "quislings" and "traitors" at the same time as the Labour Party's left is calling for anyone with the mildest critique of the leader to leave the party and join the Tories. The cause of all this - or most of the cause - is the division over the UK's imminent departure from the European Union. It's not simply a matter of leave versus remain any more but a bewildering mish-mash of options, arrangements, contested votes and personal vendettas all fuelled by the high octane fuel of twitter. It's time for a new party to crawl from out of this chaos armed with wisdom, common sense and an unshakable moderate purpose - or so lots of people seem to think (or want or believe).

Now it is possible that a new party could be formed - indeed we are blessed with dozens of such things. It is also possible that this new party will sweep all before it as people leap at following a political movement that isn't either obsessed with One True Brexit or led by Jeremy Corbyn and a clique of Tankies (although we should remember that there is a national party, the Liberal Democrats, that meets these criteria and it isn't bounding ahead in popular support). But these things are unlikely for a whole lot of reasons - here are a few thoughts.

The last successful new national political party in Great Britain was formed in 1900. We call it the Labour Party (it's true to say, however, that the Scottish National Party and, to a lesser extent, Plaid Cymru are also successes and were founded more recently). It took the Labour Party nearly 25 years to get a sniff at government and 45 years to secure an overall majority. And Labour was also helped by the massive expansion of the franchise in 1918 (not just women but millions of working class men too). So, if you're seeing your new party as something that will rush Chuka Umuna, Chris Leslie or Justine Greening into Downing Street perhaps think again.

The Labour Party (and for that matter the SNP) weren't set up by existing politicians unhappy with the current political arrangements. Labour was, in essence, formed by the trade union movement and began life with an established and organised activist base as a result. Even so it wasn't until the 1922 election that Labour got more than 100 MPs elected. A bunch of existing politicians setting up a new party has precedents (Oswald Mosley's New Party in 1931 and the slightly more successful Social Democrats in the 1980s) but without the activist base it is pretty difficult to turn fine words into campaigning on the ground. In the case of the SDP, they were subsumed into the Liberal Party following pacts and alliances simply because the Liberals already had an organisation, local councillors and local parties.

Again this doesn't prevent a new party succeeding but it makes it more hard work than it looks when some bright-eyed politicians appear smiling and blinking on the news shows. And it won't be those politicians doing the slog but some people who, at the smiling and blinking point, aren't involved with the new party. Moreover, the chitter-chatter about new centre parties covers up another essential flaw - these parties are light on ideology and unsure on their positioning. This makes it difficult for them to deal with the inevitable problems that come from one or other established party occupying politics' centre ground.

To succeed any new political party has to decide which of the established parties it plans on replacing (in the manner of Labour replacing the old Liberal party). As those media-friendly, centrists parade their credentials it is important to target one or other existing party - saying something like "we'll take moderate votes from both parties" is to fight on two fronts making it more difficult to win. Far better to say something like "Labour has been taken over by the far left, we want to return to the values of Attlee, Gaitskill and Wilson in providing a voice for Britain's workers and their families". Or, if it's the Tories in your sights, "the Conservative party needs to be the voice of decent, patriotic communities but its obsession with Europe and austerity is failing these people". And remember that this message isn't just for 2022 (or whenever there's an election) but for as long as it takes to complete the replacement of the targeted political party.

All this means that you'll lose - six years of Labour campaigning after its formation resulted in just two MPs - and, more significantly, you will split the vote for left or right resulting in them being out of power or in unstable coalitions for decades. Lots on the left blame the SDP and Liberal Democrats for Margaret Thatcher's governments (and I guess that plenty of Liberals back in the first half of the 20th century thought the same of Labour).

Setting up new political parties works where you've a system of proportional representation (just look at Ireland or Holland for a guide) but even in such systems being an established political brand with an organisation and loyal supporters counts for a great deal. In the UK with its first-past-the-post system new parties start at a disadvantage and you can rest assured that existing politicians are not going to vote for self-destruction just for the sake of your shiny new centrist party.

A new party might work but the UK's political game, even with the current chaos, is stacked against new political parties (and, it seems, pretty much against either radical change or the fixing of mistakes within the existing big parties). You may want a new party for Christmas but it's likely to end up like one of those toys that everyone wanted, played with once or twice and then left untouched in favour of the Lego set with the pieces missing.

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How political parties get paid isn't the concern of government...it's the concern of members

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I know you'll all start talking about corruption and the buying of influence but, let's be honest about that problem, it's not a consequence of political parties but rather the result of how government's willingness to fix markets makes bribing politicians an effective marketing strategy.

No, dear reader, how private organisations fund themselves isn't the concern of government - assuming that they're not doing so by doing things we've decided are illegal (drug dealing, running protection rackets, intimidation - all the things Sinn Fein used to use). Yet the Electoral Reform Society has decided - from its pinnacle of righteous knowledge on these matters - that action is needed:

The public are sick to death of party funding scandals. Over the last two weeks we have been exposed to yet more findings about the suspect dealings of party donors. It brings our democracy into disrepute, and we have to do something about it.

I'm not concerned here with the question of whether those donors are good or bad people. I take the view that, regardless of the political debate, they are mostly good people who care about politics. Care enough about politics to donate large sums of money to political parties and political campaigns rather than pouring it into the bottomless pits of football, sea-going yachts and opera.

What I'm concerned with is whether there's any justification for the Electoral Reform Society's campaign:

We propose three solutions, all of which have been recommended by previous committees looking into party funding and have been shown by ERS polling and focus group research to command support from the public. These are:

• A cap on the amount that anyone can donate to a party, to end the big-donor culture that has led to scandal after scandal
• An increased element of public funding for parties, to bring the UK into line with other advanced democracies
• A cap on the amount that parties are allowed to spend, to end the arms race between parties at election time

There is huge public support for doing what it takes to get big money out of politics, so whichever party takes a lead on this could stand to benefit at the polls.

To understand why the ERS are wrong we need to appreciate a few things. The first is just how cheaply we get our politics and democracy, the second is the lack of evidence supporting a link between political donations and party policies, and the third is that (as the Americans - after decades of campaign finance reform - have discovered) there's always a get around. I also take the view that there's a matter of principle here - in a free society people should be free to use their money to campaign for the things they think are important (including, of course, their own self-interest).

British politics and democracy is pretty cheap. Really it is. Over the six years from 2008-2013, the two main political parties had a total income of £386 million (split more or less equally - Labour raised about £5 million more that the Tories). I appreciate that this isn't all the money spent on politics - other parties raise funds, there are plenty of campaign groups (some very well funded) and there's the unquantified value of all that volunteer effort we see a glimpse of on Twitter.

To provide some context here, the annual player wage bills at Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea are all higher, at around £200 million, than the income of either the Conservative or Labour Party for the entire period of the current government. We get all our politics paid for for less than the wages at a football club. Yes, I know you think footballers are overpaid, but this still tells us that our democracy is, relatively speaking, cheap as chips.

Generally speaking giving money to political parties isn't a great way to influence policy. It's true that there's some reliable evidence from the USA that campaign contributions and policy outcomes are linked. Moreover there's some research suggesting a link between contributions and public contracts (although mostly the contributions come after the contract not before). There's also some evidence suggesting that the more 'professional' the legislature and the higher paid the legislators, the more likely it is that campaign contributions will influence decision-making.

The evidence from the UK is more limited and mostly anecdotal. Transparency International reviewed 'Corruption and the funding of UK political parties' in 2006. This report didn't record a single identified example of 'corruption' or evidence of undue influence and opted to fall back on the same argument as the ERS:

The recent ‘Power’enquiry into the state of Britain’s democracy found that “there is a widespread perception that donations to parties can buy influence or position. It is clear that a system of party funding that relies increasingly on very sizeable donations from a handful of wealthy individuals or organisations creates an environment in which the perception spreads that democracy can be bought.”

Now there's some truth that a widespread view that money buys political power runs counter to the idea of a free democracy but the evidence of actual corruption or undue influence on policy is negligible (and yes I include the Bernie Ecclestone donation to New Labour in this conclusion). And there's not even all that much evidence closely linking donations and electoral outcome! Here's an expert on campaign finance effects talking:

For example, large shocks to campaign spending from changes in campaign finance regulations do not produce concomitant impacts on electoral success, nor do candidates with vast personal wealth to spend on their campaigns fare better than other candidates.

These findings may be surprising at first blush, but the intuition isn’t that hard to grasp. After all, how many people do you know who ever change their minds on something important like their political beliefs (well, other than liberal Republicans who find themselves running for national office)? People just aren’t that malleable; and for that reason, campaign spending is far less important in determining election outcomes than many people believe (or fear).

Our worry that somehow a shadowy bunch of hedge fund owners are somehow buying the election makes for good politics but there's precious little evidence supporting the contention that big donors - whether corporate or individual - either get what they "want" or influence the outcome of elections.

There is no case for legislation to regulate the funding of political parties any more than the degree of control needed for any private organisation be it a company, a charity or a campaign group. When the ERS refers to "scandal after scandal" it uses deliberately unspecific language - we've read the scandals in the newspapers and, if we're honest, they don't amount to any real threat to our democracy.

The losers in this dominance of party funding - including the access that can go with it - are not the voters or even the operation of government. The losers - and that's why the numbers have dwindled - are the ordinary party members. Our ability to have an influence over our party is what gives when big donors - whether institutional or individual - play such an important role. And this is the reason why I've argued for ages that the Conservative Party should simply impose an unilateral cap on the level of donations. The Conservative Club in Cullingworth will give £1,000 to the Party this year - and that club considers this to be a significant contribution. Because the Party - at a national level - is chasing those million pound plus donors, the emphasis on member recruitment, local events and the idea of the Party as a social movement as well as a vehicle for getting Tories elected has been lost. A voluntary cap on donations would force us back into doing just that - working to get ordinary folk to help us, in whatever way they can, get the sort of decent, efficient and effective government we need.

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We propose three solutions, all of which have been recommended by previous committees looking into party funding and have been shown by ERS polling and focus group research to command support from the public. These are:

• A cap on the amount that anyone can donate to a party, to end the big-donor culture that has led to scandal after scandal
• An increased element of public funding for parties, to bring the UK into line with other advanced democracies
• A cap on the amount that parties are allowed to spend, to end the arms race between parties at election time

There is huge public support for doing what it takes to get big money out of politics, so whichever party takes a lead on this could stand to benefit at the polls.
- See more at: http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/blog/deal-or-no-deal#sthash.pLfWMR8L.dpuf

The public are sick to death of party funding scandals. Over the last two weeks we have been exposed to yet more findings about the suspect dealings of party donors. It brings our democracy into disrepute, and we have to do something about it. - See more at: http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/blog/deal-or-no-deal#sthash.pLfWMR8L.dpuf

The public are sick to death of party funding scandals. Over the last two weeks we have been exposed to yet more findings about the suspect dealings of party donors. It brings our democracy into disrepute, and we have to do something about it. - See more at: http://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/blog/deal-or-no-deal#sthash.pLfWMR8L.dpuf

It's bad marketing to scare mailing recipients into opening a letter

First let's be clear that I'm not concerned here with the accuracy of Mr Miliband's letter to targeted voters. Nor with the inevitable appeal to emotions that goes with campaigning about health. And I'm not particularly picking on the Labour Party here - my party has committed the same sin.

Secondly I am - in so far as such things exist - something of an expert on direct mail having managed the mailing programmes for a large national charity and been Planning Director at a major direct marketing agency.

Let's be clear that scaring the recipients of your mailing is not good marketing. Even worse when you use what looks like an 'official' approach such as that in the Labour mailing. We should understand that people will open the mailing because they think it is important (you've told them that). The problem is that 'important' in this context means 'directly relevant to me'. And the Labour mailing (and the Conservative "mansion tax" mailing) fail on this latter point. I open the envelope only to discover a general message about unspecified 'threats' to 'your local NHS'.

What the Labour Party is doing here is deliberately deceptive and this is never good marketing. As indeed Labour has discovered:

‘I’m sure there will be people desperate for test results or appointments who will be opening the letter thinking they’ve got the information they’ve been waiting for.’

And so it goes. If the Labour Party wants to write to voters about health services then a much better approach would be to use to outside of the envelope to make some broad points - perhaps print some newspaper headlines about hospital or ward closures with a statement inside along the lines of: "Read Inside how Ed Miliband's Labour is the only party committed to your NHS".

This approach is not only honest but is also impactful - you know that the mail recipient reads the envelope while standing next to the recycling bin and you get the barest few seconds to engage enough to get the reader to open the mailing. You get a few seconds here to get you message across - the important one, in this case, that only Labour cares about 'your NHS'.

Instead the Party opted to con the reader into opening - some will be upset and angry but most reactions will be "pah, it's just a crap letter from Ed Miliband, not important at all" followed by it landing swiftly in the waste bin. As a result the Party has irritated thousands of people who thought the letter might actually be important and has upset a few more - some enough to get quoted in the Daily Mail (I'll point out here that no list is perfectly clean - I don't remember any large mailing where we didn't write to at least one dead person).

So here's so free marketing advice for political campaigners:

Be Proud of Your Brand - stick the logo and brand messages on the outer envelope

Tell People What's Inside - "an important message from Ed Miliband..etc."

Use a Real Return Address - not some semi-anonymous mailing house

Tell People Why You've Written - "you can help us save the NHS, read more inside..."

Merge Purge - run your lists against each other and against the most up-to-date register

There's lots more (but you'll have to pay me to get that). Above all please remember that deception, misleading folk and duping them into thinking something is important when it isn't - these things are bad marketing. You may think you're being clever by getting people to open the envelope but that's a waste or time if they then go to the newspapers to complain about your deception.

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Organising for the long term and a unilateral cap on donations - how to restore Conservative 'grassroots'

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We all know that the two big UK political parties are, in terms of membership, shadows of what they were in times past. At its peak the Conservative Party had over 3 million members and the Young Conservatives were perhaps the biggest political youth movement in the democratic world.

When I joined the YCs in 1976 the cracks were already showing, the membership was declining year on year, and the national party seemed uninterested in anything but the next general election (although that election did elect Margaret Thatcher so perhaps I shouldn't complain too much). However, back then the Beckenham constituency had three separate YC branches. The main Party branch that my mum was active in was called Lawrie Park 'A' - just one polling district of a larger ward.

So when we talk about the Party's grassroots, this should be what we are thinking about. Not self-appointed campaign groups that adopt the word Grassroots to make out that somehow they're in touch with the soul of the Party. Or even groups that use words like 'Mainstream' or 'Way Forward' to try and suggest their particular faction is somehow representative of the real Party.

In truth the grassroots of the Party are no longer the membership. When I talk to Conservative voters (something I do try to do as often as possible) I get no sense that they feel part of a movement, that they belong to something. Yet these people will troop out in election after election and put their cross next to the Conservative candidate. Their motivation is less tribal than was the case when the Party had those millions of members and more self-interested: they believe that the Conservatives represent them better.

The Bow Group has become the latest in a long line of folk that have had their four-pennorth on how to restore the fortunes of the Party organisation. Thankfully, the Bow Group start with absolutely rejecting state funding for political parties, and state in stark terms the scale of the problem:

...the Conservative Party should not go down the road of state-funding for political parties, but instead should take urgent measures to reconnect with its electoral base and grassroots members. 

The Group set out '11 Steps' that the Party needs to take ranging from more dialogue through rejecting 'open primaries' and electing the Party Chairman to more tactical matters such as ending the Coalition sooner rather than later. There is, from the perspective of someone with nearly 40 years active membership, much to commend in the proposals.

However, the bit that the Bow Group miss is that, to turn round the Party as an organisation, there has to be two further things done:

1. The Party needs to invest in the long term, to have people whose job it is to think about what the organisation will look like in 20 years time and to set resources aside to put professional organisers on the ground in places where the Party needs to develop.

2. The Party should announce its intention (unilaterally if agreement with Labour can't be achieved) to stop taking donations above a certain size (say £5,000) - this would provide the incentive for the leadership to look for lots of smaller donations rather than finding a couple of billionaires to hand over a few million.

I believe that these two actions would break the grip of London on the Party, would make us pay attention outside election time to the ordinary men and women who actually plod down to the polling station to vote Conservative.

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Do they not get it? We don't pay taxes to fund politics...

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...and each time I hear someone suggesting that giving us politicians the ability to dip our fingers into the public purse to fund our political organisations - as a way of stopping corruption - I want to scream.

People don't get up every morning and go to work - often for not very much money - to pay taxes so political parties can run posh offices in Westminster. Nobody does this. If political parties want to run these offices but think that relying on millionaires or trades unions stinks of buying influence then they need to go out there and raise the money from ordinary people. From subscriptions, donations and fundraising events - just like they used to do before they decided that tapping up rich folk was easier (and meant that there were fewer of those pesky members to cause trouble for the leadership).

And what makes me even madder is the cavalier approach to public funds - 'oh, it's not very much' they say:

Nor are the sums large: Sir Christopher proposed a £10,000 donations cap and an increased state contribution of £23m a year over five years – the cost of a first-class stamp for every taxpayer. 

There are hundreds of better ways to spend £23million and, more to the point, there is a matter of principle involved here. It is not the purpose of government - the thing to which we pay our taxes- to fund the conduct of politics. Even more than with funding from the rich or from powerful institutions, the use of public funding for politics is wrong.

The problem political parties have is that nowadays only the ambitious and the anorak joins. The idea of joining a party (my party used to take any sum in return for a membership card - I recall collecting subs with my mum, 50p here, a pound there made for a large membership) to have your say and enjoy a bit of socialising has long gone. Today's Parties have largely given up on members - too much trouble.

If we allow state funding there will be no point or purpose of membership unless you want to be a politician. Is this really what we want for our politics? Where political parties look first to the state to pay their bills rather than make their case - for funding as well as votes - to the public at large? And where even more of our politicians emerge from the shallow, self-serving nomenklatura that populates Westminster. More and more nice posh boys and girls without the first clue about life in the real world but who sound good and know the right people.

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State funding of politics is wrong...

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Unite buying up constituency Labour Parties isn't an argument for state funding. Not a bit.

I heard Angela Eagle interrupting Andrew Lansley on Radio 4 but it wasn't this that struck me but that her solution to the corruption of the Labour Party by its Union paymasters isn't stopping them buying up the party wholesale but state funding.

That's right folks, rather than reforming party funding to prevent what has happened we should make it unnecessary by simply allowing the parties to dip into tax funds. Put simply this would represent the final severing of the link (and it is the thinnest and most fragile of links) between individual members and politics.

Instead of political parties having to seek active support from members, we will see - if Ms Eagle gets her way - party officials being little different from the other courtiers, from all those special advisors, members of executive boards, campaign organisers, advertising people and media manipulators. Instead of at least a pretence of the parties being accountable to individual members across the country, we will instead see parties accountable to no-one.

Right now British politics is pretty remote from the public - back in the 1950s there were perhaps as many as 4 million members of political parties (more if you included actively involved trade unionists, members of Conservative Clubs and so forth). Today the entire collection of parties can barely muster 500,000 - a number that continues to fall. Across whole swathes of Britain one or other of the two main parties has no significant presence - a few old activists long past their most effective and perhaps the occasional student anorak of ambitious pole-climber (although the latter now flock ever more thickly in central London).

That Unite feel able to buy up local Labour Parties is a symptom of this problem. Just as are the frequent squeals about major donors from the business community to all the parties. For a few million over several years an organisation or individual can purchase a disproportionate influence over policy-making machinery. 

But how does replacing that corruption with direct funding from taxes - a different form of corruption - improve matters? We get a political hierarchy that has no need at all to engage with anyone outside the 'Westminster bubble', the system would be closed to folk from provincial backwaters who haven't the time, cash or obsession to park themselves in London. Policy would be ever more London-centred, increasingly about the preferences and biases of a small cluster of courtiers attached like limpets to the grandees of politics. Grandees who, a few years previously, were those very same courtiers.

Perhaps, instead of robbing the taxpayer or sucking up to big paymasters, politicians might consider instead refusing such funding. And then walking the walk - asking for small donations and embracing the principle of democracy rather than the idea that votes are gathered by spending other people's money and boasting about it. Maybe the parties might turn their backs on big donations - whether from the wealthy institutions or rich people - and seek support locally.

There was a time when the Conservative Party had no minimum subscription - give us 50p and we gave a membership card. And those people who paid the little subs came out to coffee mornings, to dinners and to strawberry teas - raising the money for a local agent and an office, funding election campaigns and providing the voice of the Party. Now those people are gone or going. And they are not replaced with more of the same but with a coalition of political obsessives and the ambitious.

Old-fashioned party politics isn't dying out because of policy or because of bad government, it's dying out because the leaderships of the parties no longer care. The voluntary party, the local association, is a pain, an annoyance. Party conferences are grand affairs designed as media showpieces rather than as a gathering together of people from a mass party, from a movement. Everything is shiny, politicians spend time with journalists, lobbyists and clever folk from think-tanks. No time is given to the folk who've spent their own cash to come to conference; they're just a backdrop a little local colour rather than anything of importance.

State funding would make this worse. If it arrives the idea of the people influencing the state will have died. And let's face it, we don't pay taxes to fund political parties, do we?

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The slow death of political parties - perhaps they should try some marketing?

The BBC finally cottoned on to something that some of us have known for ages – political parties are dying out:

Political party membership appears to be in terminal decline in the UK - so can anything be done to reverse the trend? And does it matter?

It was once a source of cultural identity and pride for millions of British people.

But at just over 1% of the population - low by European standards - party membership is fast becoming a minority pursuit.

There are more members of the Caravan Club, or the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, than of all Britain's political parties put together.

The BBC reporter goes on to speculate as to the reasons for this calamitous situation – politics is boring, the rise in ‘individualism’ (pointing oddly at twitter and facebook as evidence of this trend) and the decline of political clubs. What the reporter doesn’t ask – choosing instead to report on the latest round of frantic efforts to get more folk involved from Labour and Conservative Parties - is why?

The problem is pretty simple – only anoraks and the politically ambitious join political parties because these are the only people who get something from membership. When I pay my subscription to the Royal Horticultural Society, I don’t do so in order to attend meetings but in order to get privileged entry to the Society’s gardens and events. This isn’t noble any more that joining the National Trust or RSPB is sold to us as a selfless act.

The problem with political parties is that there is no offer. In times past there was an offer – essentially a well-connected social life. People joined the Conservative Party because it provided a round of dances, parties and sherry mornings. The Young Conservatives (a much better name than the current ultra-naff “Conservative Future”) thrived – becoming Europe’s biggest youth organisation – on this basis.

At a family event a while back – sadly a funeral – I was taken by the extent to which all those attending has made friends, met wives or husbands and developed business contacts through the YCs. The vicar who led the eulogies spoke of being a YC, of borrowing the Mission to Seamen’s van for boozy nights out and of the lasting connections made in those few years. All – or nearly all – this has now gone.

And I’m sure the same goes for the Labour Party.

Despite not having an offer – a reason for someone to pay a chunk of cash to join – the political parties continue to dream that the volunteer-driven, inconsistent and fractious structures of meetings, committees and contradictory bureaucracy will serve to create what Ed Miliband calls (I so love this):

...a modern, outward-looking organisation

While at the same time Ed – seeing the payments to councillors – takes an easy route to raising cash. Introducing a tithe:

A leaked report shows that the Opposition leader plans to force more than 5,000 Labour councillors to hand over seven per cent of their town hall ‘wages’ to stop party coffers running dry.

And Labour’s frontbench team has called for increases in wages paid to councillors, which would benefit the party by resulting in an increase in the value of the new levy.

But before all the Tories out there get excited, we do this too. I pay a proportion of my basic councillor’s allowance to my local association. This is a requirement demanded of me for being permitted to stand as a Conservative and amounts to around £1,000 per year. In addition, I’m expected to pay my own election expenses if I am successful.

And this is the problem. Not that I have to pay but that the leadership of our political parties see public funding as the salvation to the financial woes of those parties and to escaping from the curse of the billionaire – the appearance that very rich men can, and did, effectively buy political parties.

The first front in the desire of political parties to become institutions of the state was the introduction of “Short Money” in the mid 1970s. This seemed a jolly idea – let’s help the opposition work better by giving it, as a political institution, some public money for that purpose. And it is not an insignificant sum of money – in 2009/10 in amounted to nearly £7m. But it acted to show the parties that they could turn to the state to solve their financial woes rather than rasie money the hard way.

And many – building on the creation of a protected legal status for political parties – now argue for direct state funding for political parties. Most notably Sir Hayden Phillips in his 2007 report that followed the “cash for honours” scandal:

In a complex formula to give state aid to parties, which would give a major boost to smaller parties from the Greens to the BNP, the report suggests that funding should be linked to general election votes in order to establish that fringe or new parties have a "base of support in the community". 

It recommends that eligible parties should receive 50p each year for every vote cast for them in the most recent general election and 25p for every vote in the most recent ballots for the Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly and European parliament. 

In addition, Sir Hayden suggests an internet-based system for parties to attract subscribing "supporters", who would pay £5 which would be matched by the same amount from public funds - up to a cap of £5m. 

In return for such public funding - which would replace the small policy grants currently available to parties - political parties would have to produce an annual report showing how the money had been spent. 

Such a system – however much the ‘great and good’ may like it – would represent the death of politics and create parties as clients of state bureaucrats rather than as private, campaigning organisations. Yet that seems the only solution – there isn’t a look across to successful membership organisations asking how they achieve that success.

And it is pretty simple really:

1.  A strong, consistent brand and public offer focused on consumer benefits as well as the wider mission of the organisation.
2. A well-resourced, professional and dedicated marketing operation – not one using the gimmicks of PR but one founded in fundraising, direct marketing and sales
3. Regular and high quality communication with the member, prospective member and supporter – containing offers, incentives and rewards as well as information about the mission and achievements of the organisation

This is why the RSPB, National Trust, Caravan Club and even Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth have succeeded while the political parties decline. It isn’t simply “social change” or other such mumbo-jumbo of an excuse but that political parties in the UK focus on servicing the needs of political elites rather than on developing a public offer giving reason for the ordinary person to join the party.

Nothing will change – the parties will carry on declining, continue to disengage with the public and eventually will take more of the state’s money. At no point will these parties turn to us marketers and ask: “how can we build a membership as big as the RSPBs?”

And that’s a question we can answer.

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Fantasy politics - a world without the Party

I have been reading one of those substantial, detailed fantasy epics. You know the sort – sweeping vistas, warring kingdoms, dark lords and magic everywhere. This one – Wolfblade – is slightly unusual in that it’s written by a woman, which seems not to change the nature of the narrative style or the complicated array of lords, barons and knights so typical of the genre.

However, the description of politics in a fantasy world got me to thinking about how a polity without political parties founded in ideology might look. And how the politics might play out in such a place. Even – and I’ve restrained my fantastical urges here – where there are no mages, sorcerers or wizards.

We have got used to a land where political parties are the entire – or almost the entire – basis for political competition. Even down to the level of little town councils in small market towns, we find elections contested between the parties of left and right, liberal and conservative, authoritarian and free. The presentation of politics by the media, the analysis by academics and even the cynical public bar conversation – all these are formed round the assumption that politics needs the political party.

But let’s fantasise for a moment. Let’s consider a world without political parties. Where everyone is “independent”, where there are no whips, no ‘lines to follow’, no tribal politics. Rest assured my friends, I’m not getting like that dreadful fraud, John Lennon, and imagining some nonsensical utopia – indeed the world without political parties may be dystopian rather than utopian!

Which takes us back to Wolfblade and the world of fantasy. The book details a politics founded on competition between Warlords moderated by the need to retain national unity against the possible – even probable – external threat. The contest is driven by two factors – self-interest and strategic difference. And we should note that these factors are not separate but weave together in determining the factions, interests and politics of the realm. This is the world without political parties – at least as we know them. Different factions – parties if you must – exist but their contest is not ideological but practical, strategic – even tactical.

In the world without political parties, we focus more strongly on leadership, on character and – trumping all this – on our own self-interest. Our support – whether it be votes in an election or troops in a battle - is governed not by ideology or the political tribe but by which person best represents our interests. It becomes a true politics, one determined by consideration rather than habit and where we choose as out representative one who represents our interest not that of some distant party headquarters.

Or at least that might be so. But just as likely is the triumph of the courtier – the man whose sole purpose is to secure power. For sure, these men – and women – abound in our politics already. For every honest politician – for each Philip Davies or John McDonnell – there’s a dozen or more interested mostly in preferment and in power. In a world without parties – in my fantasy – we might find ourselves in a darker world of corruption, power-broking and destructive government.

And this is the theme of so much fantasy literature – the contest between a fearful, corrupt world under some dark lord and a brighter, chivalrous world under some shining king or queen. But what we should remember – and Tolkien knew this – is that even the best can be corrupted by power:

In the place of a Dark Lord you would have a Queen! Not dark but beautiful and terrible as the Morn! Treacherous as the Seas! Stronger than the foundations of the Earth! All shall love me and despair!

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We are all idiots: thoughts on democracy and representation

Since the lovely Anna Raccoon featured my ancient little piece praising idiots on her blog recently I feel inspired to a little update on the philosophy of idiocy – and its goodness. At least in part this is because a thought struck me – namely that representative democracy is looking a little old and tired these days. Or rather our Western European version of representative democracy has become rather like grandma’s stair carpet – fine at a glance but decidedly threadbare on closer examination.

In Europe (and for that matter in places like Canada, New Zealand and Australia) we choose representatives through the proxy of the party system. In most places political parties have sufficient brand equity to be able to prevent the system becoming too fragmented. And even where the nature of the electoral system encourages schism and division, the election of representatives is predicated on them being from a political party. Yet – and I really think this is very important – nearly everybody isn’t a member of a political party. Our representatives are – in effect – chosen by a tiny number of people who happen to have paid across £25 or so to their favoured party.

Which brings us to our good idiots – let me remind you:

So let’s look at our typical idiots. Round here they’re probably in their thirties or forties, employed at a middle management level in business and industry. They worry about how well their kids do at school, they concern themselves with making their family safe, they grumble a bit about paying taxes but have enough cash afterwards for it not to really matter. Such folk are ordinary, hard-working and inherently conservative. But they also see little or no link between the act of voting in a politician from one party or another and the significant things in their lives.

The final sentence here is central to the argument – the act of choosing a representative and the deeds of government are not connected. Our representatives – MPs, MEPs and Councillors – really aren’t in charge. And just to stress this point let’s remind ourselves how decisions are made:

The truth is that decisions in local government aren’t taken in the manner most ordinary people – including quite well-informed ordinary people – believe is the case. Us councillors no longer sit on various committees in numbers reflecting the political balance of the council. Eight or ten councillors make up a (usually) one-party executive – often pompously called the ‘cabinet’ – and it is here that the decisions are taken. But understand that any discussion takes places away from the scrying eyes of the public – in Bradford we had a thing called “CMT” consisting of Executive Members and the Council’s “Strategic Directors” where the real decisions were made. You must also understand that most of the decisions are made under “delegated authority” by one or other ‘strategic director’.

The particular flavour of Councillor you elect doesn’t really matter and, even if you are lucky enough to have a “cabinet” member as your representative, most of the everyday decisions that affect you aren’t made by Councillors and only get our attention when you’re upset enough to shout at us.

So what should we be doing? Can we fix representative democracy – by, for example, banning political parties – or is it all rather too late and has the sheer scale of Government got too much for any effective system of representative government to manage? Certainly, those anarcho-capitalist folk would argue that we should abolish such indulgences as elections in favour of that most efficient of choice-based systems – the free market. However, despite a degree of sympathy with this view, I am not convinced of its merit and am convinced of the need for there to be a guarantor of the rules – which you may choose to call ‘government’.

I am also convinced of the need for this guarantee of fairness (by which I mean the equal application of the rules) to be provided by citizens rather than by experts. Hence common law, juries, parish councils and elected officials (as opposed to elected representatives). And in this system there is no real need for members of a parliament who take up their role on a permanent basis – in times past we selected parliaments for a specific purpose and on a time limited basis (just as we did with judges) and can do so again.

Our current system is broken – when barely 50% of those who can vote did vote in the most tightly fought election for decades and where local by-elections are decided by less than 15% there is something wrong. And it isn’t ignorance, apathy or idleness – they’ve rumbled us. They’ve worked out that the system is ramped up to favour political apparatchiks, they’ve spotted that, however people vote, the same nannying, interfering decisions get taken and it’s dawned on them that democracy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. And who are they? They are the good idiots the ones who, to quote George Bailey “…do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community.”

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Fixing the system: political parties, funding and privilege.

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As you will know, dear readers, I have a slightly jaundiced view of the manner in which political parties are obtaining a constitutional position that extends beyond their established role as private organisations established for the purpose of promoting a particular cause.

We no longer need to clump together in class-based groups so as to protect our interests – we’re all pretty much middle class with much the same interests as each other. And in the main this interest involves keeping the Government and its agents out of our lives, getting on with raising our families, enjoying the house & garden on which we’ve spent all the cash the government leaves us after tax and not bothering our neighbours overmuch with our individual problems.

In truth we don’t need political parties. We don’t need to spend taxpayers’ money on sustaining the 1% of the adult population who join those parties. And we don’t need special protections or status in law for such bodies. If people like me want to join them that’s our business and we should not expect any privileged status or treatment for the organisation just because they are engaged in politics.

In the past few days, the ‘Committee on Standards in Public Life’ began a consultation on the funding of political parties – you can go play with this consultation on-line here. Now, although I care deeply about the manner of party funding, I am just as concerned about the assumptions being made by the Committee in framing the terms of their consultation.

Political parties are an essential part of the sound operation of the democratic process. They offer individuals a way to participate directly in our democracy and are the means by which voters choose between alternative policies and candidates at elections. Through government and effective opposition, political parties shape public policy. If political parties are to operate effectively it is essential that they are adequately and appropriately funded but it is also important that the means by which this funding is provided commands public confidence.

This implies a privileged position for political parties within our constitution – they are “essential”, they offer individuals “a way to participate” and are the means of choosing between “alternative policies”. And because of this particular, gatekeeper role Government should concern itself with the funding of political parties.

I don’t agree. I do not accept that political parties have any special position of importance and should be given any special advantage over other organisations – however those other organisations are constituted. The fact that the Labour Party is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the trade union movement means that I will never vote for it. But if those wealthy, protectionist organisations choose to fund a political party, that is their business – at least until the Government gives political parties a special position within our constitution. Sadly, the previous Labour government gave just such a privileged position to political parties and in doing so granted an advantage to the larger parties despite their rapidly declining membership. Today less than 1% of the population are members of political parties – and that includes all the funny little left-wing and right-wing grouplets that come and go like mayflies.

Finally, rather than focusing on income – on where a political party gets its cash – we should instead look at spending, at what the party spends its cash on doing. I have long argued that election spending should be exclusively at the constituency level – all national campaign funding should be banned and a reasonable limit on local spending used. That would get away from the “business/unions/rich foreigners are buying the election” arguments and would make independent and local candidates far more valuable and likely.

But this won’t happen now, will it!

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