Election finance reform may not be at the top of many people’s Christmas list, but it is arguably a more important issue right now than even electoral reform. As Liberals we hold the fundamental values of fairness and equality as sacrosanct, while as democrats we believe that power and influence should be derived through the ballot box. The most grotesque feature of this election was the amount of money that the Conservative party spent. To be absolutely clear, until the Electoral Commission releases the spending stats, all we can work off is declared donation income, which reveals an eye watering income disparity between the parties. In the first two quarters of 2015, the Conservatives received around £24m in donations – nearly 4 times that received by the Liberal Democrats, in fact, the top 20 Tory donors gave more than all Liberal Democrat donors put together. The influence that these rich and powerful donors have over their parties is potentially toxic to our democracy, skewing politics towards special interests, and weakening the power of individual voters. While I am no fan of the Labour party, or the money which comes from the Unions, David Cameron has already announced his intent to weaken this financial association, thus crystallising for his party an insurmountable fundraising advantage, this is a naked attempt at a ‘political kneecapping’, and an outrageous abuse of Government power.
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