Cleaning Up Politics

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 themsleves.

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.

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