Respite
Having blogged against Jack Straw’s travesty of a campaign finance bill, it appears that there is now a temporary victory. As the Guardian reports, and the Spectator expands upon, the Electoral Commission have effectively threatened to veto Jack Straw’s proposals to give the Labour Party an unfair advantage in elections. While they cannot actually block the legislation, they have threatened to stall for so long that they will not come into effect until after the election.
Sphere: Related ContentBigger Salaries Do Not Make Parliament Accessible
One of the myths peddled by various MPs to justify their arcane system of payments is the need to make Parliament accessible to everyone regardless of income. It has become the replacement justification for the status quo after the need to attract the “best and brightest” was discredited. After all, a candidate whose primary concern is making money may not make the best representative. That there is no shortage of very capable people lining up to become candidates regardless of salary may also have helped discredit this idea. The argument has therefore shifted its focus from encouraging people at the top to get involved, to enabling those at the bottom.
The desire to attract a wider range of candidates is a laudable one. There are plenty of people who would do well as candidates or MPs, but for whatever reason decide against standing. The job will always be difficult: long hours, hard decisions, a large workload and immense scrutiny. To become an MP you need to have a thick skin and a strong drive. In this respect a certain amount of people will be put off for reasons that are unavoidable. Money should not be one of them. But to claim that the current funding regime is a way of supporting this is misleading at best.
The salary of a backbencher starts at around £60,000, and is topped up with a generous expsenses regime. An MP elected at a General Election is guaranteed employment for at least four years, with very little in the way of actual attendance requirements. Played well they can then make extra money by trading on their new status and connections. If you don’t believe me then look no further than the Register of Members’ Interests. Assuming that you are any good at your job ministerial and select committee roles may open up, bolstering your salary substantially. Upon your retirement or ejection you are then given a generous index-linked pension. If you were competent then new doors are opened to you based on your new “expertise”. Would anyone on a low-income background seriously refuse to take such a job on the grounds of poor pay?
The reason that people from low-income backgrounds are discouraged from standing for election is not because they won’t get paid enough. The problem goes back to the electoral process. Regardless of your party, becoming an MP is an expensive business. Notwithstanding the £500 deposit a candidate has to cough up, elections have huge hidden costs if you want to win. Conservative Home puts the figure in the tens of thousands. If MPs want to be serious about widening access to Parliament, they should look at making it less expensive to stand for election, not claiming coffee tables off expenses.
Sphere: Related ContentJack Straw Undermines the Political Process
The latest response by Labour to Lord Ashcroft’s fundraising for target marginals has been a grossly biased fundraising bill proposed by Jack Straw. The most offensive of these proposals has been the banning of any spending by candidates other than during an election.
On the face of it this would not seem too bad. However, when you discover that an MP will be granted ?10,000 in the form of a “communications allowance” it starts to look bad. As Iain Dale highlights, candidates in marginals have to spend a large amount of their own money on campaign expenses and activities, and this measure tips the balance in favour of the incumbent. Sitting MPs have the upper hand in terms of funding, media access and recognition. Cutting off funding until the election period will put challengers at even more of a disadvantage. The incumbent will have just a few weeks to challenge someone with four years’ exposure and the backing of the Westminster machine.
This is damaging to democracy. By banning challengers from promoting themselves or their views, the ability to have proper political debate at the constituency level is crushed. It will further centralise politics, confining debate to Westminster. Candidates will no longer be able to offer constituents alternatives and keep MPs on their toes. Local communities will suffer as a result of this loss of accountability.
Given the importance of marginal constituencies in any election, we can assume that local parties will obey the letter but not the spirit of the law. Funding will be driven underground. Loopholes and workarounds will be exploited. Publicity will be generated by other means. Parties will start financing candidates without announcing their candidacy in public. The resulting disaffection when these practices are discovered will damage the overall political process.
More importantly for Labour, this is also not in their long-term interest. There is a possibility of a Tory landslide at the next general election. With the advantage given to the incumbent, the possibility of Labour regaining power four years later diminishes. What looks good to Labour now may come back to haunt them when they are sitting on the other side of the Commons.
David Cameron’s response leaves something to be desired. His proposal to limit individual funding strikes more of making Labour uncomfortable about its union backing. It is a pointless exercise as they will never accept a measure that makes them bankrupt. Cameron should rise above Straw’s gerrymandering and propose a sensible and measured alternative. That would show up Labour’s unprincipled opportunism far more than any tit-for-tat amendment.
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