Question Time 18th March

Friday, 19 March 2010

Actually quite entertaining, or not quite as terrible as it normally is. Lots of people were 'very offended', the poor darlings. Margaret Beckett (socialist), Caroline Lucas (green socialist), David Starkey (conservative?), Charles Kennedy (socialist), Andrew Lansley (red Tory), David Dimbleby (BBC, socialist).

First questions are all about Unite and BA. Some muppet suggests state funding of political parties, christ you might as well vote for communism or fascism.

See the rest here

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Peter Barber said:

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"Some muppet suggests state funding of political parties, christ you might as well vote for communism or fascism."

Not at all.

Large individual donations (from wealthy business types to the Tories and from trade unions to Labour) are in effect bribes: adopt the donor's favoured policy or face the withdrawal of a significant part of your party's income. Such donations also distort elections by giving them media exposure and advertising opportunities quite out of proportion to their level of popular support. A state funding system which severely restricted the size of individual private donations, and instead paid an allowance based on evidence of current popular support (e.g. number of votes in recent elections) would mean much more level playing field. Parties would have to compete on the merits of their policies, not their ability to buy full-page ads and billboard space.

BTW, David Dimbleby was a Charterhouse pupil, then a member of the Bullingdon Club (the Bullingdon Club, FFS!) while studying PPE at Oxford. He was made editor of the student magazine specifically to rid it of the radical left politics of its previous editor; while running the Richmond and Twickenham Times he was regularly attacked by the NUJ for paying less than the minimum wage. Dimbleby is no more a socialist than Franco was an anarchist.