For sheer ineptitude the efforts of the new and now very recently resigned Conservative chief fundraiser Peter Crudas take some beating. His performance in offering opportunities to shake the Prime Ministerial paw,-or for more bigger piles of loot possibly if absurdly to have "influence" were up there with, and reminiscent of, the Duchess of York's offerings to sell access to the Duke. Both were hideously cringemaking and made one wonder how on earth why any candidate for signing up would even want to continue the conversation or be able to avoid throwing up. Strangely though there are people in the world to whom even this tacky flypaper does not shout loudly "Don't come anywhere near,-flee now!".
Party funding and the influence it may give or be portrayed as giving donors has been a vexed question. The Labour Party is probably the most problematical. Over 80% of its income comes from the trade unions who are not exactly a disinterested entity. They also pretty much control the party conference votes through their dominant blocks and certainly chose the current leader, the ever santimonious and hand wringing Ed Miliband. For that alone they expect influence. Unsurprisingly the Unite leader Len McClusky is described as being "very close" to the Labour leader.
Historically the Conservatives have relied more on big businesses and wealthy individuals. Some of the latter give because they genuinely believe in the Conservative philosophy,-if there currently is one,-or to help keep the others out or in the case of the ones targeted by this approach,-mostly driven by simple naive vanity. Seemingly they revel in the prospect of being able, however misleadingly and pointlessly, to say they have dined with Dave("Oh, I see him often you know")in an upper room at number 10 or elsewhere. Any self respecting political party or social group would simply say they don't want them, however brightly their Gold Cards shine. Today the Conservative Party in the Commons seem to have failed to fling back into Miliband's lap retorts about supping with union leaders.Are there no good knockabout cut and thrust parliamentary debaters in the chamber?
After this embarrassment, the theatrics and posturing of which may go on for a while, there is no doubt that politicians of all parties and none will be a little more careful to avoid accusations of lying down with dogs and catching fleas. Leaders will also have to select their advisors and "doers" a bit more wisely.
The Lib Dem position is a little unclear. Buying supper with Nick would appear to be at best a low cost austerity driven option but realistically probably isn't considered worth even small change by serious social climbers or influence seekers. Their Party's position is probably more the reverse,-how to pay people to come and chat to them over a bottle of no air miles English organic eco-red or Elderflower cordial.
The solution of course is to ban all donations and fund political parties out of the public purse. The problem though is that Joe Public's purse is firmly closed when anyone called double glazing salesman or politican comes to call. That makes it very unlikely to fly.
There is another bigger and possibly nastier beast in the influence game and one that has been used and abused in Britain for centuries. It is of course the honours system from the award of peerages downwards. While it has a good side in recognising and rewarding the often unsung truly deserving, too often it has been used to reward party donors and the undeserving and self promoting for good behaviour ("services to the nation"), to encourge people not to rock boats or stand in the way of things or to otherwise use the less positive side of real influence. It is time we said "Enough, away with all this. The whole titles and letters thing gets in the way of social cohesion rather than enhances. It is divisive and as such corrosive". The days of King Arthur, barons and the like should be long over and a puritanical line of zero tolerance is needed to all forms of political patronage and external funding. It can sail too close to corruption and become just that. The alternative is to continue a long, slow slide towards the Zimbabwe model. Anyone really want that? Sorry, silly question maybe.
