Evidence submitted by Maurice Bale
May I presume to put to your committee a point
of view from an ordinary member of the public.
It would appear that a lack of funding puts
a political party at a disadvantage in the run-up to a general
election. For one party to have much more money to spend than
another looks to me very much like buying votes.
Often the campaigning is unfair in another sense.
If a party has access to advertising hoardings it can produce
an argument in its favour or to the prejudice of its main rival
so late in the campaign that there's no time for a response; to
put it another way, a well-funded party can buy the use of the
last voice.
May I suggest that the state could well pay
for much of the costs of electioneering provided they were severely
restricted, not an invitation to splash out at the taxpayers'
expense.
Suppose that each party [two or more candidates
with the same manifesto] was allowed one party political broadcast
at a set cost, and one pamphlet per person for each constituent
in whatever language(s) required— and forbidden to do any
other advertising whatever. Talk to the man in the street and
by and large he's easily tired of over-exhortion, whatever the
cause. There need be no cost of distributing the pamphlets, since
that is normally done by unpaid volunteers.
Maurice Bale
April 2006
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