I can't believe Peter Hain is hanging on!

No, seriously I can't. After all the revelations we heard in the Sunday Times that even his aids said he should go, and today the Telegraph will run a story saying that Gordon Brown is coming under pressure to sack him!

Its not hard. he runs the "No Ifs, no Buts" department, yet clearly can't control a small campaign team. What a joke.

What is also laughable is that some Labour apparatchiks are trying to equate this with George Osbourne declaring all his donations to the electoral commission and following the as it now appears wrong advice of the Parliamentary authorities in not registering the same with the register of members interests. There is no comparison.

The fact is that Peter Hain has demonstrated that he can't run a small operation, let alone one the size and with the budget of the Department of Work and Pensions.


Mind you, it is clear why he is hanging on, he is one of the domino's that if he fell would lead to the fall of Harriet Harman and Wendy Alexander.

The BBC has this and this, whilst Guido has this, this and this.

Peter Hain hangs on by his fingertips!

Its seems Peter Hain has no shame, and is hanging on to his job!

How are we supposed to take anyone seriously as head of the DWP, responsible for prosecuting people for benefit fraud, under section 112 of the 1992 Administration of Social Security Act, where to knowingly give false information is an offence yet can't get the hang if his own strict liability for reporting donations!

I mean we are talking about over £100,000!

Can anyone take him seriously when he squarely dodges his reporting responsibilities?

The BBC has this.

Is Peter Hain about to resign?

From early this morning I have been hearing reports that Peter Hain, AKA Hain the vain was about to make a statement over the funding of his deputy leadership campaign. Despite the reports saying the statement was "due shortly", it has not as yet happened.

Why the delay? Is he trying to secure some support so that he does not have to resign but having trouble doing so?

Ah well, we will find out "shortly" I suppose, and I seriously expect him to have resigned by the end of today.

The BBC has this.

Party Funding II

I wrote about party funding on the 14th of July, here.

Labour set up a commission to look into the issue headed by Sir Hayden Phillips, whose website, www.partyfundingreview.gov .uk can be found here.

The review has published it's interim report which is available here.

On page 12 Sir Hayden Phillips says this:

"Finding a consensus on a new way forward for party funding will not be easy. The reform of party funding is not an end in itself, but a means to achieve the wider benefit of improving the quality of democracy. From the reaction the Review has received so far, I believe that the achievement of a good measure of cross-party agreement would be welcomed by the public. For that reason alone the process of the Review must be openly explained and not perceived as a private agreement only in the interests of the established political parties. Achieving agreement will require not just facilitation but an act of political will, including a readiness to accept that no one party will necessarily be able to achieve all of its objectives."

Which is interesting given this report in the Guardian, by Patrick Wintour their political editor. According to his information Labour are looking to bring forward legislation early next year to deal with the party funding issue regardless of the position of the other parties. This of course has many dangers associated with it not the least of which will be a battle Royal in the Lords.

Labour need to work on the basis of consensus on this one. It would be bad for democracy and indeed Labour if they don't.

What seems clear is that Labour are worried. They have £23 million in outstanding loans and it looks like they are going to have trouble paying them off. According to this report from the BBC it also appears that the Conservatives owe huge amounts as well, in fact £33.5 million. Mind you the Conservatives do not seem worried by this. Labour are also concerned that out side of the spending limit window the Conservatives are getting their campaigns in marginals going. This strikes me as a bit false as I am sure Labour were doing the same between 1992 and 1997.

It must be remembered that the reasons why people are being turned off politics is because they don't trust the parties. If you read Private Eye you will see why. Paying for some fringe event at the Labour party conference gets you on the platform, speaking with a minister and the appearance that you have just bought influence. If you add to this the Powder Ject issue you can see why people don't trust Labour.

All political parties need to re-engage with voters. This won't happen if every time some one ones to speak to the public a bunch of pratts from other parties turn up to heckle. That needs to stop.

Also state funding of political parties will go down like a lead balloon. It already happens, but the public don't know so don't care. If there is more state funding they may go bananas.

Hat tip to Jon on politicalbetting.com for the link to the Guardian story.

Party Funding.

Those who inhabit the blogosphere can't have missed the various scandals around how parties currently get their funding. Guido Fawkes has been one of the main people writing on the subject, and the issue has come up for discussion on politicalbetting.com.

There is therefore the sticky question of how we fund party campaigns.

Various ideas have been floated around as solutions to these problems, in my view they may well end up causing more problems.

One idea being touted is of state funding. Well there are a number of problems with that:

1. It is not popular with the tax payer.
2. What happens when the BNP come asking for funds?
3. It allows the party leadership to distance itself from its grass roots.
4. How do you dish the money out?
   

Some people have suggested that we can come up with wheezes to exclude people like the BNP, but this is dangerous thinking. Firstly the old "No platform" thinking is anti democratic, secondly they can use the wheezes as a political weapon to get more votes.

There is also the problem of how you dish the money out? Is it on seats in parliament? Seems unfair to the Lib Dems, though it is a wheeze to squeeze the BNP. What about vote share? The arguments would be endless, and further more the party in power could well fiddle it to their advantage and their opponents disadvantage.

The thing that concerns me most is that the party leadership can then distance itself from its grass roots. Labour have already done this by loosening the relationship with the Unions, but is that a good thing? Is turnout going down because the grass roots are not being energised? How is a party that has lost its grass roots going to pick a new leader, candidates and policies?

There is currently some state funding of campaigns, which consists of a free mailing to all households in a constituency, but only for the parliamentary seat. The candidate has to pay for the envelope and the contents.

Others have suggested a cap on party spending and a cap on maximum donations. This seems most sensible to me as you still need to have a grass roots base, still need to talk to people and above all the spending cap will mean far less money is wasted in the dreadful ways it normally is during elections.

There are also hybrid suggestions such as giving more than just a free mailing to candiates, but not anything like full funding. Well, that may also be a way forward.

What seems clear to me though, is that what we are doing at the moment can't carry on. We are in a strange arms race of dirty tricks, back room deals and general all round mendacity that is poisoning our democracy.

Any ideas for a solution?