In todays society money talks, and more money talks louder. In election times it is important to have people there to distribute pamphlets, make calls, organise more professional looking posters and other cmpaign material. This list could go on further. A party with more money can theoretically talk to more poeple and present themselves in a more professional light, thus making them more likely to win office. The end result being that the focus shifts from the polcies to presentation

Politics is still decided on policy and the money that the parties recieve from their different interest groups is productive of the policies that then decides the election. There is quite an individual system whereby we have parties that represent clear distinct ideals, and each party gains its funding in slightly different ways.

E.G. Conservatives, the more protective and defensive nature of business Labour, the workers and the Liberal Democrats to the freedom lobby.

While that is a massive oversimplification of the truth the fact that the parties can appeal to different sources of income means that polcies are still the key in the outcome of elections.

An individual donor can give a huge amount of money to a party and have a huge impact. This gives them a huge amount of power in any particular case. See as a perfect example the Bernie Ecclestone donation to Labour in which labour then gave Bernie Ecclestone the decision he wanted. This is a clear abuse of power but it can be far more subtle than this brazen example, but because parties need to appeal to a particular donor wealthy individuals or buisness roups can wield huge power. A limit on spendin is almost the only way to control this

In the current climate costs just keep on escalating. With parties now having helicopters for senior figures, posh election busses and numerous offices full of full time workers the cost of campaiging is going up and up. A limit would prevent the prices going up, to a point whereby parties have to appeal to people directly and these people gain ridiculous power, therefore we need to control the spending and keep it in check.

The motion does not specifically state that election spending be provided by the taxpayer, merely that at election time parties have a limit on how much they can spend. All it would require is some legislation. Then the parties would be limited to an amount that they should spend during an election campaign.

To ensure that political parties could campaign on equal terms it would require the tax payer to fund the political parties directly. This would almost certainly result in the taxes going up to provide directly for party staff. We have recently seen in the expenses scandal that faith in MP's is low, to give them more influence in terms of public spending would be a very dangerous move.

Most importantly though it is easy to forget this: roughly only a quarter of the electorate of the United Kingdom (and sometimes less) vote for the winning party while under half actually vote. That means that if parties were to be funded we would be forcing over half the electorate to pay for something they do not even believe in.

This is a circular argument. Whilst ensuring that all parties get the same funding is reducing liberty in the menial sense of ‘you cannot give inordinate amounts of money to political parties’ the liberty that we gain as a result is far greater. We gain a democracy that is fought on policies and principles as opposed to slanderous leaflets which litter our doormats. We gain the liberty of knowledge as opposed to sensationalism. This is by far a greater liberty, and is more conducive to democracy than being able to give your money to who you like. Besides, surely there are more deserving places where money can go than to corrupt politicians?

Right now, if I want to donate money to a party I am completely free to do just that. Its right that I should be able to do that, if I want to do anything else then I am just as free to do that also, and that is because we live in a liberal democracy, not just a democracy. Parties should have the right to freedom in the way they operate and the way they raise funds, and people should have the freedom to donate if they want to also. A system where liberty is reduced and some people forced to contribute reduces liberty and so should be the reverse of a mature liberal democracies goals.