Paying for political parties

So the British Labour party is in trouble over a donation of a few million pounds, resulting in a lot of talk about state funding of political parties.

"State funding" is a nice little phrase. What they really mean is that we the public are not giving them enough money and we should instead be forced to fork over our hard earned cash. State funding isn't a magical pot of money, we earn it and they want it without earning it.

It seems that we all have a rather good idea of what the political parties are worth. For us "ordinary" people, they are worth a big round zero, and that's how much we give them. The rich and powerful however value political parties much more highly. (Hmmm, I wonder why.)

If we ever did get state funding, it would probably end up being in proportion to the number of votes you win. After all, the entrenched big parties are not about to threaten thier own existance. So those who don't need the funding get more, while independents and small parties - those who could actually do with the money - would hardly get any.

Instead of worrying about where the parties are going to get thier money from, why not just let them die like the dinosaurs they are. Those politicians who are actually good at thier job would continue to do thier job as independents, while droids selected by the party hierarchy would have to go and find some real work for a change.