Broadly speaking, everyone knows what the Conservative Party stands for. It stands for the monarchy, private property, the armed services (at least until the advent of George Osborne) and the established church. But for upwards of 100 years it has also stood, less publicly but no less determinedly, for the destruction of the Labour Party’s sources of finance. Almost since Labour’s foundation, the Tories have been chipping away at the trade union affiliation fees which form the basis of the Labour Party’s ability to fund an effective electoral machine.
So it should come as no surprise that they are at it again, this time by trying to nobble the Committee on Standards in Public Life just before it publishes the findings of its 17-month inquiry into the funding of political parties. The committee was due to report next month, and was widely predicted to be about to recommend the imposition of a £10,000 cap on donations to the parties by individuals and organisations, but to have exempted union affiliation fees from the cap in return for stricter controls on the way the fees were collected.
This seems to have infuriated David Cameron and his Tory Central Office minions. So one of them, party co-chairman Lord Feldman, wrote to committee chairman Sir Christopher Kelly expressing the Prime Minister’s disappointment that the forthcoming report would exempt a major source of Labour funding from the proposed cap on donations. “The rules
on donations should apply equally to all parties”, he said.
Never mind that Sir Christopher’s committee is a supposedly independent body, that it has just spent well over a year sifting the evidence submitted by the parties, and that it has evidently rejected the Conservative Party’s arguments for treating trade union affiliation fees on the same basis as the donations of rich City bankers. Never mind, either, that all three parties were directly represented at the enquiry. The Prime Minister apparently feels entitled to intervene personally in the inquiry, using his full influence as the head of the Government.
As it happens, I once sat on a somewhat similar committee to consider the future funding of political parties. It was chaired by the late Lord Houghton, and was appointed in 1975 by James Callaghan’s Government. We sat weekly for just over a year, publishing our findings in August 1976. Our main purpose was to decide whether to recommend state funding for the parties, and if so, what kind of system should be adopted. A majority decided in favour, and drew up a complex system whereby parties would be rewarded for votes gained at the preceding general election. A minority of just four members, of which I was one, decided against.
I have just been re-reading our minority report, and jolly good it was, in my somewhat biased opinion. Indeed, much of it could have been written yesterday, especially in the matter of trade union affiliation fees.
Here is what we said on that matter: “There is no evidence that the dependence of the Labour and Conservative parties on institutional support from trade unions and industry has distorted their overall political direction. On the contrary, it can be argued that the two parties exist to represent these legitimate interests, among others, and that they attract the financial support of industry and the unions precisely because they do. It was the trade unions which founded the Labour Party; they remain an integral part of it, and the affiliation fees which they pay to it must therefore be sharply distinguished… from ‘donations’.”
We were writing at the time of a savage, Greek-style austerity programme forced on the Callaghan Government by the International Monetary Fund. So here is what we had to say about government spending cuts: “It would be morally offensive to provide the parties with a state subsidy at a time when programmes of vital social and environmental importance are being drastically cut, and when the government is facing heavy pressure for still more painful and immediate cuts. The Prime Minister has said that there can be no new expenditure while the crisis persists. It is inconceivable to us that the Government could make an exception of the party organisations at a time when, to take just one example, it is apparently impossible to preserve a world famous women’s institution like the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson hospital.”
And how about this? “Cynicism about politics and politicians is already at an alarmingly high level…. partly because of a lengthening series of financial scandals involving political personalities. The sight of political representatives at Westminster voting substantial sums of public money to their parties could only deepen this cynicism still further.” Don’t forget, all this was written 35 years ago.
We concluded our minority report by conceding that matters might get a lot worse for political parties, and that a genuine rescue operation might conceivably become inevitable. In that case, we suggested, a future government should direct its attention to a system of indirect aid to the electoral process instead of handing large sums direct to the party machines. The advantage of this approach was that it would be a subsidy to the actual democratic process. It would therefore be in line with historic British practice, which has traditionally involved things such as free postal deliveries and free television and radio broadcasts.
On the whole, I think we were right about that. So I hope that Sir Christopher and his colleagues – who are allegedly going to recommend an increase in state funding – took a look at our report before they made up their minds.
