Over at Liberal Conspiracy, Sunny asks four questions.
1) Is Labour still the vehicle for liberal-left ideals?
2) Or is that only because it is in power?
3) What should be the future for party financing?
4) How can any grass-roots liberal-left movement have impact?
Here are my answers.
1. Is Labour still the vehicle for liberal-left ideals?
Yes. It has the history, the recognition and the systems in place. If we look at one of the alternatives that has been mooted on LC, the
Green Party, we see that it is only starting to make serious headway in electoral terms and that it continues to struggle with finding a
consolidated public voice.
Equally, the emotional attachment to Labour for many people is strong. Some people have the opposite emotion, and would quite happily go to a
Respect or SWP, while some would go for an Orange Book flavour of LibDem. There can be no doubt that trying to change vehicle would lead
to the liberal/left going in lots of different directions and giving the Tories almost free rein.
It does not mean that it cannot be the only body, but the single issue campaigns that I suspect many of us identify with stand a better chance of having effect with a single party to promote them at Parliament.
2. Or is that only because it is in power?
The Government is starting ? just starting ? to give the impression of being in Government but not in power. However, devolution to Wales,
Scotland, Northern Ireland and London, and to a lesser extent local councils, means there are other things for which to fight. I would say
that it is a lot easier to make changes when in power than when out of power. Even if Labour were out of power at Westminster, it would remain the best chance of regaining it.
3. What should be the future for party financing?
I am not an expert on the law, but I’ll give some thoughts; they largely follow on from Hayden Phillips’ report.
Firstly, there must be a hard cap on expenditure; donations are a trickier issue, but the arms race that drives the search for donations
could be limited and so make concentrating on a strategy of more, smaller donors more attractive. Labour would like to see less corporate donations to the Tories, and the Tories less to Labour from the Unions. As these are red lines that the parties won’t cross, it seems to me that the funding issue is only going to move slowly and with tinkering at the edges; expenditure is a different matter.
Secondly, if there is to be further state funding, it must be on a capped, donation-matched basis. I remain very dubious about the effect
that state funding has on preventing political parties dying out and being formed.
Thirdly, spending outside of elections must be included in a cap. It is too easy to saturate an area before a Parliament is dissolved.
Fourthly, the parties must realise that they are going to have to change their advertising strategies and see that they will not have
the financial wherewithal to run campaigns like a commercial organisation would. This means less money on billboards and more on
supporting local parties to go door-to-door.1
I was Treasurer of my CLP for two years and had to report certain donations if they fell above a given value. It is a time-consuming job
and one consideration must be for any changes to be practicably implementable by volunteers.
Ultimately, it must be connected to a cultural change in campaigning for it to have effect.
4. How can any grass-roots liberal-left movement have impact?
The grass-roots liberal-left movement should be the Labour Party. I think there is a degree of putting the cart before the horse on this
one. The question is one of engagement; how does the Labour Party get more people to give small amounts of money? I would say that
The Labour Party probably can’t, but that the Anytown Constituency Labour Party can. Achieving this requires members of the
Labour movement – the Party, the Co-Op movement, the Unions – to turn up to meetings, to take an interest in internal party democracy and to show that there is a ‘market’ for this. It also requires people nearer the top of the Labour Party (and here I’m thinking of the elder
statespeople of the PLP) to convey both the message and the weight behind the message.
A brief note; over at Liberal Conspiracy, there is mention of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act. It has only a few lessons
for the UK because candidates rather than parties attract funding in the US; because of the winner-takes-most effect of the presidential
system; and because of the Supreme Court’s ability to overrule decisions made by the Congress. There is also greater public acceptance of large donations. The main thing to learn, as McCain said at the time, is that it is not possible to ever come up with a definitive set of laws as people are always looking for loopholes. Vigilance and adaptability are key.
xD.
1 – I think measures to reduce the distortion towards marginal seats would be useful, but that is a different kettle of sustainably-caught fish.
On N3, Dave, I commented at MacNumpty that I can’t see why there should be any restrictions on private financing for parties, yea, even the cursed EU. It would save us all a lot of bother.
I am really not convinced by the ‘money is speech’ argument; it gives the rich a bully pulpit. However, I would prefer that the cap be on expenditure rather than donations.
xD.
i’d say left-liberal ideas have got stronger in the labour party in many ways the last 30 years have been the story of the decline within thel abour party of very different phenomea, the revolutionary left (well rise then fall) the marisxit left , the labour union left (sometimes even center) and the labour orinted social democrat and the rise of left-liberal activits of varying degrees of radicalism whose ideology resemelbes the dominant forces in the US democratic party.
I take your owrires on the “money is speech” argument however the fact is the media is run by well of people- and a much smaller group of people than those who can give donations – and htose who have a lot of infleu are probaly fewer and more priviledged than those with a lot of money- shutting off the possiblity off debate in this way strikes me as a bad idea.
They should deregulate tv advertisng- so the parties can get their message out more and rely less on journalists and spin.
as far as I can say the argumetns for cappying donations while weak are stronger than expenditure
Edmund,
I am loath to do anything that restricts political freedom of speech. The reality is, though, that the media have a disproportionate effect and some deliberately exploit their newspapers and television stations to serve their political intent with the effect of making political parties overly cautious about ‘what the papers say’ and, yes, I am thinking about Rupert Murdoch here.
I fear that your comment about deregulating TV advertising is hopelessly optimistic. For one, people don’t pay much attention to TV ads. Secondly, they’re expensive and would put parties even more in hock to single donors. Thirdly, the quality of political advertising just about everywhere is woeful, mostly because a thirty-second slot does not allow you to engage with the issues in any meaningful way and, in any case, are better suited to setting out your policy platform rather than the politics and reasoning behind it.
Equally, they only work for national or regional elections. For local elections, they cover too large an area. My belief is that political engagement starts with people knocking on the door, not a TV ad.
You’re absolutely right on your first point about the Labour Party, though.
xD.