Peter Kenyon

Standards in Public Life confused with party funding

Sir Christopher Kelly, the chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life risks torching his own reputation by opining about a recent inquiry into the funding of political parties.

According to the BBC report of his press conference earlier today about a survey into public trust in our politicians:

Sir Christopher told a press conference in Westminster this morning that he was concerned by the lack of resolution within Parliament over party funding.

He called for political parties "to have the courage to work together to reach a consensus" and said it was "a matter of great dismay that this has not happened and may not happen until after the next election".

Interviewed later on the BBC TV One o'clock news he explicitly refered to the doomed Hayden Phillips Inquiry. I shall be sending him copies of my main pieces on party funding published in Chartist, here , here and, if you have access to a proper library, Chartist #212 when I reviewed the Electoral Commission report on party political funding (2004). I warned prior to publication of Hayden Phillips updated report in 2007:

The unsuspecting public should beware. This is no innocent inquiry.

I look forward to your graceful retraction, Sir Christopher, pending proper consideration as would become someone in your position with a reputation to consider as much as any politician.

How to fund Labour - Rich few or many members?

Further fuel for the debate.

'Jinxed' Labour leader visits NW frontier

BBC's man in a plane en route to Kabul reports:

Some journalists certainly wondered aloud if a surface to air missile might have hit our military plane because the prime minister seems to be currently jinxed.

As a loyal party member I'm not just worried about our Leader's survival, but that of the Party of which he and I are members. De jure OUR party is a voluntary association. I suppose the consolation in his travel plans is that he went to the NW frontier, not the NE.

Party funding to top Labour policy agenda today?

The Labour Party's Policy Commission on Crime, Justice, Citizenship and Equalities is now in session. A call for Party Funding to be put top of the agenda is expected from members representing...No, not trade union interests ..but constituency and regional Labour Party interests. The meeting was due to start at 1500.

The Labour Party has a policy about Hayden Phillips. It was agreed at the 2006 Annual Conference. And after it was discovered that Tony Blair had a cosy chat with Hayden Phillips on 30 November 2006, the PLP and then the National Executive Committee reaffirmed the Party's policy - leaving Hayden Phillips' Inquiry holed below the waterline.

As long as Gordon Brown is using the Inquiry as a means of boxing in the Tories over uncontrolled electoral spending, that's fine by me. But if he seriously thinks he can use the taxpayer to bail out the Labour from the £20 million debt mountain left by T. Blair, forget it. The public will never fall for that. Will they?

Labour's stand on party funding remains unprincipled

Yesterday's Opposition motion on Party funding was amended by the government in the following way:

The Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr. Jack Straw): I beg to move, To leave out from “House” to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:

“notes that political funding reform is essential to the future health of democracy in the UK and that Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech said that the Government would bring forward proposals on the regulation of party finance and expenditure; regrets that a comprehensive reform package was not achieved by the inter-party talks owing to the unilateral decision of the Conservative Party to walk away from a draft agreement put to the parties by Sir Hayden Phillips, despite the fact that the draft agreement faithfully reflected recommendations in Sir Hayden’s 15th March 2007 Report, which they”—

the Conservatives—

“had earlier welcomed; and urges all parties to engage constructively in order to achieve lasting reform in the public interest.”.

Hansard Debates 4 December 2007

When will our lords and masters get their heads round the facts concerning the appointment of Hayden Phillips? I know it seems a long time ago, but remember who appointed him. Yes, Tony Blair, the man who resigned leaving the political party that made him saddled with debts totalling £20 million. 

Until Labour adopts a principled stand on this issue, forgets Hayden Phillips, concentrates on capping election spending and ensuring current regulation is administered rigorously, public trust will remain beyond reach. Oh, and don't forget to revisit the Electoral Commission report on the funding of political parties December 2004. Remember - membership and small donations.

Brown must shun party politics at taxpayers' expense

The Labour Party needs to rebuild from its grassroots. No apologies for being a harpy. Yet Gordon Brown at PMQs today was still trotting out the tired script inherited from his predecessor about the Hayden Phillips inquiry (sic) into party political funding. Admittedly this a fast moving story. His performance at PMQs was otherwise faultless. We have got to avoid being distracted by our political opponents whinging on about the internal Labour Party inquiry by Lord Whitty, the results of which are to be reviewed and worked on by m'Lords Harries and McClusky. This does not in any way detract from inquiries by the Electoral Commission and possibly the Metropolitan Police.

But the issue of Labour Party solvency remains. Taxpayers' money is not the answer. There is a shockingly corrosive view at large among "opinion formers". This asserts that the age of mass membership political parties is dead.  My colleagues and I in Save the Labour Party and on the LabOUR Commission disagree profoundly.

A start was made in the late 1980s through to 1997, then stopped. The Electoral Commisson made a valiant, but timid attempt to remind our politicians of the role of members and small donations in its report on the funding of political parties in December 2004. Since then silence from ALL three main political parties. No debate in Parliament. No further consideration by a select committee in either of the Houses of Parliament. No public service broadcasting coverage. No broadsheet analysis. Total silence.

Meanwhile, Labour Party membership continues to fall. A question from Mary Turner, President  of the GMB union, at last week's Labour Party National Executive Committee about membership revealed that the 2007 year end figure to be published in July 2008 would show a further, albeit and thankfully, smaller fall than in the previous 11 years. In an earlier presentation Party officials said recruitment and retention were at the highest levels for a decade. That's welcome. Bit it does not detract from the fact that Labour failed to attract enough members to halt the 11-year decline in membership.

Without a vision of rebuilding Labour Party membership, translating Labour values into Labour policies in government, Gordon Brown's premiership is doomed. Impossible to rebuild membership? Has Labour nothing to learn from mass membership single issue organisations?

Stop it Gordon...Harriet is not the chair of the Labour Party

Has anyone in No 10 got the guts to tell Gordon Brown that there is no such post as Chair of the Labour Party? It's good that he is trying to put the public at its ease about swift action over the dodgy donation by convening an inquiry. Its good that he has stated the donations will be refunded. It demeans him and Harriet to assign a fictitious position to her. Similarly regarding the so-called six vice-chairs. And while I am at it, in answer to questions at the PM's monthly press conference he stated that he only attended NEC meetings to give a Leader's Report, and that he did not have time to stay for other reports affecting the governance of the Labour Party. Excuse me, the Labour Party Rule Book does not proscribe the Leader's role in this way. That smacks of Macavity.
If he is determined to sort this latest calamity out as he is repeatedly stating, then he needs to pay full attention to the proceedings of the Party - ignorance is no excuse. Finally, Hayden Phillips - statefunding. Forget it. The word is out there that any politician that backs the Hayden Phillips formula is trying to rip off the taxpayer. The Electoral Commission recommended in 2004 that political parties need to attract more members and small donations. Brown seems to want to repeat the mistake of his predecessor in exploiting an internal Labour Party  crisis to advance the case for state-funding. Stop it.

More evidence to justify cap on election spending

A study just published here concludes that money is a factor in elections at a constituency level. No prizes for guessing who benefits.

"In the world of campaign finance, therefore, money talks and current donation patterns give one party, the Conservatives, a significant advantage over their rivals," they said.

'Nuf said.

Party funding - what has Labour got in mind?

Well there we have it. Her Majesty confirmed that Her Government will propose regulation of party finance and expenditure. Commentators confirmed they have not got any spin guidance about how Labour proposes to go about it. Manifesto election supremo Ed Miliband in the BBC studio in the Houses of Parliament for the State Opening confirmed the government wants to find a a way to cap election spending not just in the year before an election. Rather than start with Hayden Phillips as recommended in today's Guardian editorial here, I hope the government goes back to the Electoral Commission report in 2004 - at least that was conceived by the statutory body responsible for regulating political parties, unlike HP's efforts conceived in No 10 to mask the stench of cash for honours. A key recommendation concerned encouraging political party membership - and leading indictor of the health of our democracy (IMHO).  General Election spending the EC proposed should be cut to £15 million. Earlier in the Queen's Speech she said her government proposed a draft bill on citizenship - it would only take a smidgeon of vision for joined up thinking to link the two and, hey presto, we could have a charter of members' rights inside the Labour Party as proposed here.

Hayden Phillips admits defeat - surprise, surprise

Just back from an evening out to discover that taxpayers have been spared the prospect of lavishing more cash on the political class. Former civil servant Sir Hayden Phillips today announced that the inter-party talks on political part funding have been 'suspended'. Iain Dale blames Labour for refusing to cap trade union donation. Unlock Democracy has got into an extraordinary lather here. Considered comment I would humbly suggest involves remembering the provenence of Hayden Phillips Inquiry. I can recommend this piece here.  The main losers are the Liberal Democrats.

The end of these talks offers Gordon Brown another opportunity to distance himself from the stench of his predecessor's cash for honours affair, tighten up on MPs expenses for 'communication' and set out a bold plan to encourage people to join political parties, by setting out the stall for Labour.  Plus of course, we mustn't forget that legislation is still necessary to set tough spending limits on elections. The public really isn't interested in being showered with junk mail, bombarded with telephone cold-calling or confronted with billboard wars. It expects politicians to deliver preferably in person, not through a mail shot. Roll on the Queen's speech next week.