First, fuelled in part by Labour’s debate about how it should be seen relative to the trade unions, we have the news that Ed Miliband may be about to break the logjam on party funding reform:
Ed Miliband is to distance Labour from its trade union paymasters by diluting the party’s financial dependence on them and reducing their role in electing the party leader.
Labour has proposed introducing a ceiling on donations to any political party which could be as low as £500, The Independent has learnt.
The move could break the long-running deadlock between the parties on agreeing a new system of financing politics.
Previous attempts to halt big donations have failed, partly because Labour was reluctant to give up its multimillion-pound gifts from the unions. But Mr Miliband is ready to gamble on Labour attracting thousands of small donations from individual supporters as part of a drive to take “big money” out of politics. (The Independent)
There is an obvious agreement to be made here, with a cap on large donations from individuals alongside switching the donations from trade unions into being individual donations from trade unionists. That would end the big election time lump sum donations from the unions, matching the financial hit the Conservatives would take from limits on large individual donors, reducing the power of trade union chiefs (something likely to be welcomed by many in Labour, let alone other parties) but making individual trade unionists more important (as it becomes their direct decision on whether or not to donate, how often, how much and when) and encouraging a wider political culture of more, small donations.
Second, there is news on what will replace the mothballed No.10 Downing Street petition website – a worthy innovation in its time but not something that has made much of an impact on the quality of democracy in the UK. The BBC reports:
A plan to allow popular online petitions to be debated in Parliament within a year has been given the go ahead by the government…
The most popular could eventually become Parliamentary bills.
Under the plans, petitions that receive a certain level of support – probably 100,000 signatures – would be debated…
Petitioners would have to be on the electoral roll, and Parliamentary time might also be refused if a topic had been recently debated.
This could be very good news – making petitioning a much more meaningful process – as long as the possibility of a Bill going through Parliament does not become a variation of the Private Members Bill process, where individual MPs have far too much power to block a Bill single-handedly – and even in effect anonymously. That risks immediately bringing any new system into disrepute the first time it is used for a substantive matter.
Finally, behind The Times’s paywall is news that Nick Clegg and the bishops are in heated debated as the bishops try to keep the places reserved for religious figures in a reformed and mostly elected House of Lords. Aside from the merits of this particular point, the debate shows a welcome willingness to pursue radical details for Lords reform even in the face of many members of the Lords assiduously arguing that democracy is a welcome idea, just as long as it doesn’t apply to them or quite yet.
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15 Comments
The reform of trade union funding is a must the current system is totally undemocratic.
Most trade union members don’t realise part of their subscriptions are being used to
fund New Labour.
Union political funds are basically slush funds for General Secretaries to buy favours
from the party.
If unions want to use money for general political campaigning fine.
Having a relationship with MPs who act as parliamentary advisers as many ‘non party political’
organisations do now is ok too but what we have now in the Labour affilated unions is indefensible
to any true democrat.
It needs urgent reform.
Well – lots of interesting areas here.
Leaving aside everything else there has got to be a cap on GE expenditure by political parties as in 2010 The Tories spent £17million, Labour £7m and LibDems £5m. We can tinker all we want with equalising constituency electoral numbers in the name of a fairer democracy but when one party vastly outspends the next two parties in size then that is the real threat to democracy.
I have always felt that there should be a per capita monetary limit for each registered voter with perhaps a weighting for special circumstances on electoral spending. This would also ensure that it was in every party’s interest to ensure that electoral registration was a number one priority for them. I personally believe the funding should be provided by The State to remove the influence of huge donors but perhaps cutting expenditure is regarded as more important than honest elections. Still a £500 limit is an idea but how do you police it and stop someone using a system of making multiple donations or donating ‘in kind’ like say a printing company producing leaflets at less than cost.
I always remember as a young journalist dealing with a LP councillor ‘done’ for accepting a tiny cash bribe in a brown envelope for a housing allocation and saying to am much older and more experienced colleague: ‘Why don’t they catch the Tories doing this?’ to have it gently explained to me that this was a much harder job as brown envelopes didn’t pass hands but contracts and as I grew wiser I began to understand how things were actually done in more polite circles.
I applaud Milliband for taking this step which will be welcomed by all enlightened democratic TU leadership and could provide a springboard to building a real mass membership or supporter base so that they have a permanent party interest and commitment and don’t feel all they have to offer is their vote at election time.
If this is how Milliband is going to start filling his blank pages then the wait will be well worth it 🙂
As to the the online petition nonsense – it’s hard to work out whether this is nuttier than Cameron’s Happiness Index – I’ll never forget the press conference launch of that to my dying day – I thought I was hallucinating and then I looked at the faces of the civil service audience and realised they were just as gobsmacked and desperately trying not to laugh and possibly trying not to cry knowing their jobs were currently under threat.
All this online froth is cake and circuses it empowers no one. Top of the list will be: Out of Europe NOW; Out of Afghanistan NOW; Bring Back Hanging NOW; General Election NOW and on and on and on. None of these will ever be allowed to be debated no matter how many ‘signatures; are received.
And another factor is democracy – why should you only be allowed to vote in favour of a matter to be debated – surely you would have to allow a democratic right to vote against selection of an issue you are strongly opposed to. And what will the cost be of policing the whole thing to ensure that political parties and all sorts of butters and strong single-issue groups don’t hijack the process. And who will watch the watchers who determine what subjects are picked.
Of course we could just get rid of Parliamant and local government and all bureaucracy in the NHS, Education and whatever and let’s just allow the people to govern and decide everything by electronic referenda. I think we could keep the House of Lords purely as a tourist attraction of course.
And turning to the other place – I don’t see what is radical about what Clegg is doing with the Bishops. Being radical would be ensuring there is representation from every faith with more than a certain figure of registered members. Would be lovely to see the Druids in their robes 🙂
@Dave Warren
I hear what you have to say but am surprised you make no reference to huge party political donors – often offshored in reality even if technically a UK resident and paying no or minimal UK taxes.
And I really think that you are a bit out of date in stating that ‘most’ trade union members aren’t aware of the workings of the political levy. I have been involved deeply with several unions in my working life and many others politically and know many non LP members who are actually active party members who choose to pay the political levy proportion of their TU subs. I have discussed this with many in this position over the years and what has struck me is that they have always been able to distinguish between ‘their’ political party in a sense of wider issues but recognise the need for a LP ‘insurance’ to back up the power of their TU in the workplace.
I have never ceased to be amazed at just how sophisticated ‘ordinary’ voters can be in a way that clever political analysts will just never understand. It’s a bit like the electoral support that a lot of successful working class areas gave to low-cost Tory local authorities for the benefit of low rates and extrapolating that to a GE level without understanding that the same electorate would staunchly vote LP at national level on national issues as they perceived that to be in their best interests,
I would also suggest Dave that you look at the history of the Labour Movement and how the LP grew out of the trade union movement and you might actually be able to see that there was nothing anti-democratic about that but just a natural evolution.
Yea, I agree with Milliband that it’s time to change as society is different from the late 1800s to early 1900s. But always remember that the major stumbling block to reform has always been the reluctance of your undemocratic Tory Coalition partners who have been so unwilling to ditch their billionaire donors. Perhaps you could have a nice word with them.
Clearly the Lords Spiritual need to go. And clearly the petitions idea is, in practice, a massive waste of time for everyone involved.
Absolutely agree with the above posters about online petitions being debated – more populist nonsense like the recall of MPs, and we should oppose it. I am always interested in what EcoJon has to say, but I really cannot take this story about Milliband and party funding at face value. There is no way that he is going to ditch the sources that keep his already heavily indebted party going through the bad times as well as the, much rarer, good times when it may just about be possible to attract large numbers of small donations. Party organisations always expand to soak up the amount of money available to them though.
I’d suggest “the logjam on party funding reform” is held up at the front by the Conservatives. Despite Cameron’s repeated promises to clean-up party funding, they continue to engage in some highly questionable methods to raise huge amounts of money from relatively small groups of people. Almost a third of all their funding over the last ten years has come from just fifteen families/groups.
Millibands idea is great news if he means it & if he can persuade the rest of his Party.
@Eco John
I am very familiar with the workings of trade unions having been active in them
for 30 years.
In my expirience most ordinary members weren’t aware that they were paying
a political levy and in fact reps were encouraged not to mention it when recruiting.
Yes Labour did grow out of the unions but that was 100 years ago. The current
party bears little relation to the present day one.
The Labour benches in parliament use to full of ex manual workers you don’t see
many now.
As for protection at work the last Labour government destroyed my industry with
closues, service cuts and the loss of thousands of jobs.
Labour have two big problems, massive debts & declining membership, both make Millibands plans for funding reform that much harder.
Adding loans & overdrafts Labours debts come to about £27 Million. I would be more convinced of Millibands intentions if he had some plans to cut spending or rase Subscriptions.
Labours membership rose by nearly 30,000 this year but that rise has now come to an end & only takes them back to where they were 4 years ago.
I want to beleive that Milliband has thought this through but i have nagging doubts.
But what about all the money their 1p membership offer will bring in?!
@Dave Warren
Well Dave I see you still appear to be pretty sore about all things LP – well your entitled to your opinion but I too have served in various TU position including my NEC same as you. I have been active in Trade Unions for almost 50 years and longer than that politically.
I am surprised that since you are so opposed to the political levy that you haven’t said anything about running educational campaigns using your NEC base so that your members could have been educated. If they had been I wonder how many would have contracted-out.
David, I accept that the LP is different from when it was founded but society has also changed in the last 100 years. You say that the labour parliamentary benches used to be full of ex manual workers but there aren’t many now. Well, as I said, society changes and to be honest I have never ever studied the occupational backgrounds of Labour MPs in successive parliaments. Perhaps it’s because I grew up with the phenomenon of working-class Tories around me although the Orange shipbuilding factor had a big consideration in that – the bowler hats were a big giveaway right enough 🙂
So I don’t actually think you have to be a manual worker to believe in socialism or just building a fairer society for the poor and disadvantaged so I’m really not sure that your comment really means anything. But I am now wondering when the last time ex manual workers formed the majority of Labour MPs – if they ever did – and if I get the time I might try and research it. I certainly doubt if it has been the case for the last 40-50 years off the top of my head.
I see you blame the last Labour Government for the destruction of the industry you worked in and I’m sorry to hear that but as I don’t know the industry I can’t really comment. I do know that Thatcher destoyed huge swathes of the UK manfacturing and heavy industries and destroyed the lives of millions and I know Labour has never been that bad or even close to it.
But the spectre of mass unemployment is again with us driven on Tory ideological grounds and that is the party that you are propping-up in coalition.
As you mentioned you are personally aware of the future for the million+ who are going to be thrown on the scrapheap and the pain and humiliation they and their family will face in this brave new experiment in coalition government.
@Tonyhill
Tony – I should have made it clear that Milliband wouldn’t be able to bring this policy to fruition without an element of government electoral funding for parties also included. Without that I can’t see it flying especially with the huge debts that the LP has.
@Dave Warren
Had a quick look at number of MPs listing former occupation as ‘manual’ and came up with the following:
1979 (98) 1983 (74) 1987 (73) 1992 (63) 1997 (56) 2001 (53) 2005 (38)
The number in brackets applies to MPs number in all parties declaring a ‘manual’ background. I managed to find a breakdown for 2005 which showed that 35 of the 38 were in the LP and they made up 10 per cent of LP MPs. Of course the stats, as with all stats have to be viewed carefully as the likes of miners are a separate category as obviously no miner would regard their work as manual as in the sense of manual labourer.
There is also the strong possibility that some ex TU officicials may have described themself as having a ‘manual’ background for fairly obvious reasons.
In 2010 10 per cent of LP MPs described their working background as ‘manual’.
There has obviously been a percentage decline in Labour MPs over the years with a ‘manual’ background but as I said in earlier post, society has also changed and there isn’t the same demand for physical strength in a lot of jobs which will reduce the numbers actually in ‘manual’ occupations and no doubt many in ‘manual’ occupation may have be happier to have a new job title with what is seen as a bit more status.
I suppose we should also consider the amount of manual labour now done by overseas workers whether here legally or not but who are unable to stand for Parliament on legal grounds.
Of course the real change in MP backgrounds is the ever-increasing number of those who have been university educated so let’s hope that the LibDem hike in tuition fees doesn’t dissuade those from poorer backgrounds going to uni or the percentage of those with a ‘manual’ background will fall even further.
@EcoJon
There are caps on spending in General, European, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish elections in the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000. However the General Election cap was set too high at £19million for each party that fights all the seats. this should be reduced by at leats half as p[art of any further funding reform.
I’m still not convinced by the prospect of placing greater uniform restrictions on membership of the Parliamentary club will do anything more than entrench the same old tired establishment further.
I agree the HoL requires greater legitimacy, but this shouldn’t be at the relevance of politics itself.
If public elections are introduced to remove the Lords Spiritual then this should be balanced by introducing rules on statutory consultation regarding limited specific policy areas to a representative body (eg a multi-faith synod).
Similarly I think it would be useful to have additional subsidiary houses to consult on their specific competencies. Developments such as devolution (for regional policy) and the set up of a Supreme Court (for legal matters) show the trend in this direction, but this could go much further.
It might include a chamber of ambassadors for foreign policy (which obviously would have had major influence on Iraq and Afghanistan), or any of the other public estates which hold a stake in policy implementation (a fun game is naming the representative bodies – eg the cabal of media editors).
Furthermore placing groups like the TUC and the CBI on a more legitimate basis with a better defined role would reduce their incentive to ally themselves with single political parties where they can grow to exercise excessive influence in unrepresentative and often obscure ways (such as mentioned above), and by offering these groups official footing it provides the means to demonstrate they aren’t being excluded from the corridors of power.
Democracy is not just about holding elections – far more important is the participation of the general public to hold officials to account in a transparent manner, elections are just the first step in the process.