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Tuesday, October 25, 2005

Reform needed on political donations

This article in The Independent on Sunday underlines the two basic failures of New Labour's constitutional reforms - the reluctance to introduce a fully elected House of Lords that is above Prime Ministerial patronage and accusations of positions being bought and outright resistance to reforming the finance of political parties so as to prevent suspicions of influence being bought by wealthy donors.

Until those changes are brought in then none of the political parties will be seen to be above suspicion. If the Government is really concerned with improving standards in public life and tackling widespread disillusionment with politicians then these two issues need to be very high on their agenda.
Comments:
http://www.pledgebank.com/iwannabeacrony

i hope you enjoyed your recess - i wish i could have a reading week could do with one about now.

i recently became aware of the above site and thought you would enjoy knowing it exists.
 
incidentily there was a bbc news story about Leanne Wood being cleared of misappropraition (is that the right word) of public funds in establishing her constituency office - didn't peter hain accuse you of the same / similar thing?

hope you get the same result, if your called to the bar, as it were.
 
Peter Hain accused me of misrepresenting myself as the AM for Neath, which is not true. Clearly, he did not believe it either as he did not take the accusation any further.
 
All of the political parties who are represented in Parliament receive some taxpayers money as a result of reforms introduced some years ago. The Liberal Democrats get no more support than anybody else so I do not know what you are implying David.

For the record I do support the state funding of political parties for reasons that I have outlined at length on this blog in the past.
 
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