It's my Party too, isn't it? Why state funding for politics is a mad act of cynicism

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I know it's hard down in the Westminster bubble to understand the real world where people are struggling on through the hard times. But our political leaders - and the media that preens and fawns over them - need to try just this once.

Those ordinary people don't pay taxes to fund political parties. They pay taxes for schools and hospitals and roads and policemen and soldiers. They don't pay for spin doctors, communications consultants, campaign teams and expensive offices on Millbank. State funding for political parties is wrong. So why are we speculating about it?

What odds then that in private a deal has been done that will allow both sides to come away with what they want? Here's how it was presented to me: over the next year or so Mr Clegg will find a way to back the boundary review when it comes up for a vote in the Commons. In exchange, Mr Cameron will agree to support some form of state funding for political parties.

This sums up everything that is wrong with our politics - the ghastly corruption created by Tony Blair and continued by every successor regardless of party. A belief that political parties are part of the state's apparatus, a cavalier attitude to spending tax money on what amounts to a political fix and an obsession with the process of politics rather than the outcome of policy.

But then the whole thing is so cynical.

Cameron is more open to the deal than his party because it reduces his reliance on the already decimated grassroots.

Am I thinking that Cameron is prepared - for short-term tactical advantage - to destroy the Conservative Party replacing it with a pathetic hollow shell where the "grassroots" (that's people like me) are pushed aside completely?  That I rather believe this says all you need to know about the management, leadership and direction that Cameron provides at the moment.

It's my party too isn't it?

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Some thoughts about arts funding and football

The “cuts” debate has – perhaps unsurprisingly – brought about an agonised response from the arts establishment, the Theatres Trust and an eclectic collection of the cultural great and good who say:

“…to “cut us but don’t kill us,” warning that if belt-tightening was drastic and immediate, museums would cancel blockbuster shows, theaters would go dark, and 200 of 850 state-funded bodies would lose their subsidy.”

The problem is that – unlike other sectors – the lion’s share of arts funding doesn’t go to the grass roots but to the elite establishment run by those whining about how those cuts will damage them. There is no doubt that the way in which we support the arts needs to be changed – elite art should be able to pay its own way, indeed should contribute to the development of new art, the support of emerging artists and the encouragement of audience.

Art – and especially performing art – should learn from another part of our cultural sphere:

The Football Foundation was set up as a partnership to oversee youth development and football at the grassroots. Premier League chairman Dave Richards said: "This is an exciting and important moment for English football. "We have pledged over £7m to the Foundation for the rest of this year and £27.5m each year for three years from 2001 under the terms of the new TV deal - a total investment of almost £90m.”

And that funding continues today backed up by ongoing commitment from the Football Association and the active involvement of individual clubs and players. Without a single penny of taxpayers funding football supports the development and extension of the game.

Why can’t theatre do that? Or opera?

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Propping up declining political parties is not why we elect MPs or pay taxes

It’s time for some honesty about political parties. They are dying out. Only the ambitious and the anorak join them now. And ordinary folk just use them as a cipher for voting choice that compromises the discussion of the issues and the effectiveness of our democracy.

There are currently 334 registered political parties in the UK – I don’t propose to trawl through each of these but have focused on the main ones (defined as those with a public profile and a chance of getting folk elected) excluding Northern Ireland to give membership figures:

British National Party (BNP) 12,000 members
Conservative Party 290,000
Green Party 8,000
Labour Party 160,000
Liberal Democrats 65,000
Plaid Cymru 2,500
Respect 5,000 (pre-split)
Scottish National Party 15,000
UKIP 15,000

This amounts to some 572,500 political activists – to which can be added various “parties” created as vehicles for independent councillors, assorted trots and commies and collections of what we’ll call “others”. Perhaps 600,000 folk actively engaged with the party system that, under current legislation, is a core component of our political system:

“The Bill will help to prevent the use of misleading candidates' descriptions on ballot papers at elections, thus helping to protect the identity of political parties and, therefore, the integrity of the political process. In addition, the Bill will allow, for the first time, a registered party's emblem to be printed on the ballot paper as a way of helping to distinguish as clearly as possible between candidates from different parties. (Jack Straw introducing the second reading)”

The assumption here is that we – the poor electorate – are unable to make a judgment who to vote for without the state prompting us towards one or other “registered” political party (you don’t have to register your party but if you don’t all the jolly emblems and descriptions are barred to you).

The problem is that politicians – elected as representatives of their constituents but in reality representing their party – voted to protect the role of political parties because those parties are declining rapidly. Back in 1953 when the Conservative Party had nearly 3 million members and the Labour Party in excess of 1 million, there was no need to protect the party “identity” in law!

However, the real reason for the registering political parties, for requiring all kinds of onerous reporting of income and membership, is to pave the way for state funding of political parties. For us poor taxpayers to pay for those posh London addresses, spin doctors and policy groups – mostly because we’ve stopped giving the money directly because political parties are anachronistic: relics of a different age.

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.