Evidence submitted by Jack Brown
I read in the Daily Telegraph yesterday that
your terms of reference are to examine funding of political parties
and, specifically to look at "the challenge of raising funds
for political parties in an era of diminishing membership of political
parties."
If you are now thinking the unthinkable—that
the constitutional distinction between representatives of political
parties and elected MPs should be abolished—then you must
justify your thought Part of that justification has to be consideration
of why membership of political parties is diminishing and whether
that diminution is a threat to democracy.
Membership of political parties is diminishing
because elected MPs choose to represent the policies of their
political parties regardless of well-understood public opinion.
Never in the whole field of British: political conflict has so
much been owed by so few to public opinion research; the political
parties' own rigged forums and focus groups cannot compete with
the almost daily outpourings of opinion research in the broadsheets.
Today's is the West Lothian question that has come back to haunt
the Labour members of your committee.
Are these continuous breaches of the faith held
by Edmund Burke a threat to democracy? Of course not. Political
parties could disappear tomorrow [they will disappear the day
after and I am sorry I won't be around to see it] but there will
still be elections with competing candidates if democracy prevails.
It's the only way to contain the beast in us.
There is no "challenge of raising funds"
if individual MPs are to retain any pride and a semblance pf constitutional
propriety. If politicians pledge and maintain their faith, they
will be financially supported by their friends and neighbours—usually
but not necessarily organized as a political party—until
their first election when, being now paid extraordinary salaries,
they can fund themselves.
Political parties only want more funding than
they can afford in an environment of declining membership because,
charitably, they want to keep up with the media Jones; uncharitably,
they want to line the pockets of incestuous, PR bedmates. Sam
Goldwyn said "I know half of my money is wasted on advertising.
Tell me which half.". Goldwyn was making millions by giving
people like me what we wanted. Advertising was his loss leader.
It cannot be a loss leader when there's nothing but loss.
Think idealism, if you ever had any, and tell
any politician worth his salt that he's got to go out there and
mine his salt If you do not, you will take a significant step
towards blurring the distinction between political parties and
Parliament, thus bringing political parties into even greater
disrepute and encouraging extra-Parliamentary political activity.
The raw lads are, for once, in a no-lose situation.
Jack Brown
June 2006
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