Channelling over half a million pounds through several people, businessman David Abrahams funded the Labour party this way, because he didn’t want to draw attention to one of the many ‘charitable deeds’ he was doing. This method of funding is illegal, different apparatchiks within the Labour Party were aware of Abrahams actions but at the same time claimed, they didn’t know it was against the law. Incidentally it was the Labour party who brought in these very laws whose senior figures now claim a lack of knowledge. The Prime minister strongly assured the public of his ignorance-regarding the whole proxy donations hoo-hah, but he didn’t stop there. In his opinion the public, namely the taxpayer, should bankroll the political parties in order for donation issues like these, to not come up again. Many beg to differ with the Prime Minister concerning this.
As a point of order, Mr Brown need not suggest the overhaul of the party funding system because of the Abraham’s saga, this issue came about not because of a lack of laws, but the people involved apparently breaking the existing ones. So the prime minister sought to muddy the waters of the issue with a patently false suggestion that the latest donation issue was a result alack of laws and the only way for it is the whole system be turned over. Politics. Now, the state funding of political parties is wrong for the key reason that it is diametrically opposed to the centrality of democracy, that being freedom. There is neither freedom nor democracy in mandating the public to fund any political party. No matter how the loud the obvious followers of the Rousseau ‘forced to be free’ type democracy within the Labour Party shout, truth and opinion is louder, people must chose who they will support, they should not be ‘forced to be funders’.
And therein lies the economic issue underpinning all of this; the added burden of more taxation on the public. ‘The government has no money’ so the adage goes, and so, in their plans, the public will be used yet again to fund the party-political-propaganda and squabbles over numerous points of ‘policy’ before and around an election period. The public must not be chased for a ‘contribution’ to this power play. If a party wants to run a country, it itself has to seek the funds to do so; issues like the recent proxy donors should indeed be looked at, but more so in terms of stronger penalties for the offenders rather than an overhauling of a system.
Making the public pay for party politicking would not be democratic or economically sound.
