And thirdly, we do provide state assistance to political parties and politicians who’ve stood before. What happens if we get a new candidate? They can make an application and a returning officer can make a decision as to how much they should be funded by based upon their likely electoral appeal.
Jeesus that’s so insane.
There is absolutely no corruption in British politics whatsoever. The fragrant SNP might have mislaid a few ferries and forgotten they had an Independence Battle Bus, but their heart was in the right place. Of course, they were a bit silly on not providing a tax free grant to the greatest political economist in the known universe but, hey, nobody’s perfect. And Dale Vince DONATING £1,000,000 to the Labour Party was an altruistic gesture to prevent Global Boing. Worming. Wailing. Whatever…
The labour party have made a bold move with their choice of a Ghanaian, who lives in London, has never had a proper job and has only been down for fish and chips, as their candidate for the GE.
Torygraph, January 2024 “The most hawkish seat was Clacton, in Essex, where 67 per cent wanted greater controls over immigration and lower numbers”. Since then there has been a large influx into the town.
Perhaps it’s another attempt to rub our noses in it, or someone watched Blazing Saddles and thinks the peeps will warm to him as they did for Sherriff Bart……
Giles must be dancing up and down with glee.
He’s getting worse. That’s twice this week he’s rendered me speechless. The man’s an absolute raving headcase. What he’s setting out there is the corruption of politics.
I’m surprised the legal industry hasn’t already pushed this through. Just think of all the cases that could be brought on the basis that the returning officer did not correctly assess the candidates chances and their subsequent abject failure was solely down to not being appropriately funded.
It would be a goldmine.
Sam,
As you know, for the likes of Spud and the left its only corruption when the other team does it and the left loses, otherwise its just politics.
@Grist: Given the state of their aircraft, preventing Global Boeing might be a good idea.
What have we learned today?
Fatso wants to grift by running for office.
State funding of political parties is the single most idiotic idea anyone has come up with (and it isn’t an original idea from Murphy) – what it does mean is that political hacks who can’t actually appeal to the electorate get elected because they are part of the party machine. It’s how a lot of MEPs in europe get to where they are and indeed when we were in the EU our MEPs were often anonymous party hacks. I am guessing his financial situation is pretty desperate and he needs a way to get the pension that an MP position would provide. He couldn’t run and win under FPTP so he needs the corruption that his proposal would provide. Shameless grift for sure.
“their likely electoral appeal.”
Likely in whose opinion?
Christ on a bike.
His proposal is to give taxpayer money to the prospective politicians *least likely* to need the money?
And to allow the government to determine who gets assistance with incumbents getting first chance at the trough?
I’m guessing the all knowing wise man of Ely will be too busy choosing which features people need on their phones to spare the time on being the returning officer. What if he disagrees with the returning officers decision? A campaign to remove the neoliberal fascist returning officer?
He’s become increasingly deranged recently, maybe he’s smarter than we think and these crackpot ideas get many YouTube plays and he’s grifting all the way to the bank (video on banks tomorrow)
“ And thirdly, we do provide state assistance to political parties and politicians who’ve stood before. ”
Does he think Short money is to help parties with election costs? As far as I’m aware there is no support for candidates who’ve stood before that isn’t available to every candidate.
@BiND
Some funding is given to parties who have two or more MPs. Consequently the Reform party doesn’t get it, but on the plus side neither does the Green Party.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/political-registration-and-regulation/financial-reporting/donations-and-loans/public-funding-political-parties
V_P: « …political hacks who can’t actually appeal to the electorate get elected because they are part of the party machine.»
That’s a feature of the “party list” system which is widespread throughout much of Europe and indeed why it was eventually adopted across the entire EU including the UK where we never used to have such a thing. Here, previously a “euro constituency” was made up of more or less five Westminster ones and although turnout was low and nobody voted much on the credentials or personality (if available) of the candidate, voters were choosing a named individual.
One great, no, very great advantage of FPTP is that electors have responsibility for the chump (this is a family blog after all) that notionally represents them. The other is that coalitions are rare.
AndyF,
That’s what I was referring to:
https://www.parliament.uk/site-information/glossary/short-money/
Short Money isn’t assistance for election costs, it’s assistance for the costs of being a Parliamentary Group in Parliament.
I know, that’s why I questioned whether Spud was confused about it.