Fifty families in Britain hold as much wealth as 34 million people.
This Autumn Conference, join us for A Just Society’s first fringe event, held jointly with Patriotic Millionaires UK. We’ll be asking what that concentration of wealth does to our politics, our media and our society, and where the line should be drawn.
It follows Sunday’s debate on Defending Democracy. That motion names billionaires who use money and media to influence British politics as a threat to our democracy, and proposes caps on donations and spending. Our fringe picks up where the motion stops. Capping donations closes one route from wealth to political power. Wealth on this scale has others: owning media companies and platforms, funding think tanks, paying for lobbying and litigation.
Liberals have always been wary of concentrated power in the state. The question on Monday evening is whether we should be as wary of it in private hands.
Bobby Dean, Liberal Democrat MP for Carshalton and Wallington, chairs. The panel is Julia Davies, a member of Patriotic Millionaires UK and co-founder of We Have The Power; Peter Geoghegan, investigative journalist, author of Democracy for Sale and former editor-in-chief of openDemocracy; and me, for A Just Society.
Monday 21 September, 19.45 to 21.00, Consort Room, Grand Hotel.
* Tanya Park is a Lib Dem County, Borough & Town councillor in Eastleigh, Hampshire and writes at A Just Society, a liberal policy project making the case for radical progressive policies grounded in liberal principles.
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7 Comments
I’m curious about the wording around capping donations that does not interfere with charitable giving which I assume we would not wish to restrict. That said, I know that For Women Scotland has charitable status and has won court judgements using donations to fund the litigation. So how can we restrict donations to one charities without damaging all charities?
@Jana, my apologies if it’s not clear, but when I say capping donations in this piece, I’m referring to donations to political parties, not to charities.
As a liberal I would be uneasy about capping donations to charities, irrespective of whether I supported their cause or not.
You mention FWS funding litigation, and this is something I have written about, as I feel there is a strong case for litigation funding transparency….people and organisations should be free to fund litigation but should be transparent about doing so. – https://ajustsociety.substack.com/p/shining-light-on-shadow-litigation
Hi Tanya, glad to see that you are organising a fringe on the Monday evening at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Sadly, I can’t attend Conference in person, but am registered on line to listen to the debates in the auditorium and vote on them. Sunday’s debate on Defending Democracy will be welcome, and it is about time that governments, particularly Labour ones , should seriously consider taxing unearned income, to reduce the iniquity of the rising inequality in our society.
Will your fringe be recorded, or a transcript of it be available after the Conference? I do support your attempts to encourage action towards a Fairer Society. May you succeed !
for those ‘Patriotic Millionaires’ who wish to give money to the state , its really easy:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/voluntary-payments-donations-to-government
“unearned income”
What “unearned” income is this? Do you mean the return you are paid for putting your capital at risk of being lost when you put it to work or make it available to others to use?
This kind of “unearned” income underlies every private pension across the land, including the National Employment Savings Trust auto-enrolment into which was first introduced for employees of large companies when Steve Webb was Pensions Minister.
@David Murray thank you for your comment.
There won’t be a recording or a transcript I’m afraid; however, please do subscribe via the A Just Society website or Substack, as I will post a report after Conference.
“The question on Monday evening is whether we should be as wary of it in private hands”
Of course we should. We don’t like anyone or anything that abuses power, be they individual, creed (religious or not), majority, union, incorporated business or state.
The real question is how:
1) to devise and maintain rules and institutions that:
a) allow legitimate use of power (leadership is necessary and rules have to be set to manage and exploit competition and protect people against its excesses),
b) can determine what use of power is legitimate; and
2) how to ensure those institutions are not at risk of being taken over by those who have no wish or interest in preventing enslavement by poverty, conformity or ignorance so that individuals are free to do and say what they want without harming anyone else.