Party funding reform could put Labour and the Conservatives closer to the Lib-Dems funding model.
If there is a point at which most of the authors of this blog (I can’t speak for all of them) differ from most of the sites that we link to, and that link here, it may be on the queston of ‘active citizenship’.
Where it seeems to be an almost unexamined given to argue that we need more active citizenship, and that it’s usually a good thing, I’d argue that there is a blessed equity in our current system where most people don’t get involved in decisionmaking most of the time.
I outlined the Victor Meldrew problem here a while ago, but a shorter, simplified and provocative version of it is this:
Active citizens are time-rich nosey busybodies and do-gooders that promote their own self-interest at the expense of the people that don’t have the time, energy or obsessiveness to engage in public affairs. At least if we force these people to channel their energies through political parties, they will have to spend most of their time competing for the once-every-few-years votes from the rest of us – those of us who don’t have the time, energy, inclination or fanaticism to go to consultations, circulate petitions or run campaigns.
OK, OK, there’s probably a lot of unwarranted unkindness and caracaturing going on there, but it was intended to lay out one side of an argument.
Here’s a good post from Matthew Taylor’s blog discussing what political parties need to do to survive:
We need a funding system which is fair, transparent, and sufficient for parties to engage. Most of all, we must channel money away from negative national campaigning and into grassroots engagement. It is hard to do but far from impossible, especially if parties – as a quid pro quo for greater state funding – are required to be totally transparent in all their spending at every level. But this means the Conservatives supporting reform at a time when they are benefiting from a huge spending gap in every constituency, and it means Labour has to grasp the nettle on union funding.
I’d argue that any reform of funding – if it is to promote a more decentralised politics – would have to be provided to elected representatives in a form that can’t be snaffled my party bureaucrats.
I’m hoping that Matthew will be able to join us at on of PICamp’s Reboot Britain sessions where the question of active citizenship will probably be treated in a much more balanced way than I have done here.
Oh, and PS, do you like the new blog layout?
