Money for nothing?

You know, I had no idea that the Labour Party was so reliant on one union for a quarter of its funding and that over one hundred Labour MPs are members of that union - Unite. I can't help feeling that there is something rotten about that.

That the governing party should be so dependent on one organisation and appears to reward that organisation with parliamentary seats and cabinet posts would cause outrage if that organisation were a private enterprise. Imagine if the Tories were dependent on BaE for a quarter of its funding and went on to stuff its front benches with BaE management - there would be outrage from the left (and from me too).

I just hope the mainstream parties don't use this as an excuse to resurrect the idea of public funding for political parties. I'm sure they will try, but there is no justification for this whatsoever. We should, however, have strict rules on funding for political parties - the first of which being that all donations to a political party must be from individual British subjects using their own money and capped at £50,000 per year. There should be nu funding from corporations - whether private enterprises or public bodies.

I also want to see and end to corporate political lobbying - again, regardless of whether it comes from a private corporation, a national union or trans-national NGO. I have no problem with the principle of a corporation - regardless of its nature - writing to their local MP, but they have no right to the ear of government just because they are large and powerful. That goes against the grain of democracy.

Above all, political parties must start to live within their means and only spend what they can afford to spend. If this means they have to get out on the streets to get their message across instead of relying on expensive and flashy television adverts then that has to be good. Perhaps then we can start to have a proper political debate instead of a media directed one.

These organisations are not handing over great wads of cash to the main political parties for nothing. They do it because they expect to gain something out of it. I just think that is plain wrong in a democracy - and it ought to be stopped.

Desperate Dave

Call me Dave sound increasingly desperate as he tries to bolster public support for the Tory party - and fails.

Ever since the Tories elected Cameron as leader we've been subjected to a sustained media campaign to get him elected as Prime Minister - even though we don't elect Prime Ministers in this country. We elect MPs and it is they who choose who will be PM - with the ruling party usually having the say so and choosing their esteemed leader.

Nevertheless, the media have been telling us for years that Cam's the man to lead us. They don't like Brown, the media. I don't either, but I have more respect for him than I do Cameron - not a great deal more, but you don't need much to beat absolutely none whatsoever.

Despite their best efforts - and the fact that Brown's tenure as PM has been one disaster after another - the media's love affair with Cameron has failed to catch on with the voting public if the latest polls are anything to go by.

The latest polls suggest - according to the experts - a hung parliament with Labour being the largest party. I disagree. Thanks to the distribution and makeup of constituencies, a Tory poll lead of a couple of percentage points won't be enough for them to overturn a Labour majority. If we went to the polls tomorrow and the result matched the latest opinion poll I would expect Labour to retain a slim majority in parliament - not much, but enough to enable them to form a government.

To force a hung parliament, the Tories need to be rating around 45% in the opinion polls. To win a majority this will need to be 50% or over - anything less will leave parliament hung or, at the very best, a Tory majority so slender that they would have to horse trade with minor parties to get anything done.

So why is it that the voting public remain unconvinced by Cameron despite the best efforts of the media? That's hard to say - whatever can it be about a man who has no firm political principles, flip flops from one point of view to another, promises one thing one minute then something else the next and hasn't yet managed to put forward a single coherent, solid policy on any subject whatsoever.

Beats me.