Cllr. Gavin Ayling

I have just been advised that there will be no candidate standing against me in the elections in May and that I will, from May 4th, be a District Councillor for the Buckingham Ward in Adur District Council.

An update from the Taxpayer’s Alliance:

As Tony Blair and David Cameron meet today to discuss the future of party funding, the TPA has put out a statement and a short research note making the case against the use of any taxpayers’ money to fund the parties.

As we explain in our research note, we believe that there is a huge distinction between taxpayers funding Parliament (MPs’ researchers, their admin staff etc) and funding parties, which are essentially (as they have to be) propaganda machines. Given that most people do not appear to like the way modern politics operates - with its emphasis on negative campaigning and image and so on - they should not be forced to pay for all the focus groups, polling and spin doctors that make this sort of politics work.

We also believe that the use of taxpayers’ money ignores the obvious short-term and long-term answers that are needed to deal with the problems surrounding party funding. In the short-term, what is obviously needed above all is more transparency. The whole recent controversy surrounding donations to parties came about because of the way politicians themselves used the system. Both parties encouraged would-be donors to make loans which could be kept secret instead of straightforward donations. It was their choice. Politicians could simply agree that all loans and all donations will now be completely transparent and there would no longer be a problem. It is wrong to expect taxpayers to pick up the bill for the parties operating costs because they have not had the political will to operate transparently.

The best long-term answer to the difficulties of funding political parties would be to encourage more people to engage in the political process and give more money to the parties and campaign groups. But the only way this is going to happen is if there is genuine constitutional reform in Britain where local people are given real power over their local areas. After all, the key reason so few people give to parties is because they think “all politicians are the same and nothing ever changes”. If people actually believed that their local political party could provide a candidate to stand on a radical policy platform that would transform the standards of their local schools and hospitals and make their local economy better, then they would be much more likely to donate and the parties would not need to rely on a relatively small number of big donations.

You can dowload the full statement and research note here.