A level playing field?

Let us leave aside the recently exposed law-breaking by Labour fund raising. (They like to call it a few regulations being bent in ignorance. What they actually broke were laws, which require among other things that payments made by proxies should be confiscated, not handed back, and perpetrators risk going to prison. Of, course, they all proclaim their innocence by virtue of ignorance, forgetting that ignorance is not a defence before the law!)

It is the other things they are trying on - to hobble opponents, or to give their own desperate occupants of marginal seat a financial handout. Lord Ashcroft is their target, and they and the Guardian investigate him and cite him whenever they can, and employ smear. What they don't like is that he could have a profound impact in marginal seats. To put the record straight, Lord Ashcroft gives annually less than either Mittal or Sainsbury give to the Labour Party, and far less than they receive from the Trade Unions! In all, Lord Ashcroft gives about 4% of all donations to the Conservatives each year, and he places it into a fund which he does not control.

If Lord Ashcroft and other donors were limited to a maximum of £50,000 each year, the Conservatives could probably find some more donors at this level, in an attempt to maintain their income, but why should they have to when various Trade Unions give considerably more, and will be exempt from the limit?

The Government recently paid each MP £9,000 a year to communicate with electors, on top of the postal and other allowances. The sum is vital to Labour MPs defending small majorities, and they have done what everybody expected - used their allowance to publish pro-labour leaflets in huge quantities. In fact even a cabinet minister has been charged with abusing this facility (- of course, she didn't know!) The Government is currently considering doubling this allowance!

Other ideas floated, partly to distract attention away from the current Labour illegality, include capping expenditure between elections and paying parties more from public funds. In passing, it should be remembered that the problems with the present arrangements and laws is not that they don't work - they are working, since the various malpractices came to light, it is that Labour seems to think that they are above the laws they create.

A big "No!" to capping expenditure - it would create an environment where it paid to conceal. misclassify, not record, plant evidence against opponents, etc., and would require huge amounts of administration and policing. There is already payment in kind, I presume, which is not included, - petrols in cars, use of telephones, stationery, rents, etc., etc.

A big "No" to further public payment of parties - on mainland Europe many countries have larger payments, and still have huge frauds and scandals. Politicians and politics are already held in low esteem, and to reward the present Labour Party with extra public cash after their detected and suspected dishonesties would reduce this esteem still further.

Labour does not want a level playing field, but one where they have a built-in advantage. Let them pay a price for the illegalities, not come out with an advantage!