1.  A small question if I may.  How can you mount a State funded political campaign where you will not know how much money you had to spend until the votes are cast?

2. We must avoid political correctness for the sake of it. It is for the candidates to convince te electorate that they are the best person for the job - vide current US politics. So C and E must fall.

3. Unless individual donations are capped at very low levels so as to be affordable by anyone who wishes to make a donation, D will keep the door open for corruption.

4. D and F both fall because of 1 above.  

5. For the reasons above I would not put my name to any of these as they stand. The lack of rigour of analysis in the offer is not helpful - but is not untypical of political thinking today.

 Perhaps each elemnt should be broken out and we should vote on that first so that we get some sort of concensus on how the options should be married.

Political funding and voting are the only ways left for us to directly force the government to listen to our opinions about quality of governance - they certainly don't seem to pay attention to demonstrations or letter-writing anymore. Eliminating our ability to withhold party funds is a reduction in our power over our government, and that is a dangerous precedent to set.

Trying to link funding to election results would be impracticable, and if you can't do that, then parties (or independents) will be receiving funding that doesn't map to their support base, which doesn't seem to me to be in the democratic spirit.

Furthermore, politicians are already divided in their loyalties between what is best for their party and what is best for their country. Increasing the ways in which that divide affects them can't be good for anyone.

I absolutely agree that corporate and individual funding are dangerous as well, but I don't think replacing or supplementing that type of funding is the answer. If capping the amount each is allowed to donate annually is legally enforced, and someone ran a website with a list of donors and the amount donated, which was reported on by the media, I think we could eliminate undue financial influence. (Undue influence more generally, I suspect, can never be eliminated.)

The really terrifying option (to me) though, is C's suggestion of state funding that is part-dependent on the ethno-diversity of local paid up members. Firstly, there are constituencies in the UK that are not very ethnically diverse. Are they going to be denied funds to run election campaigns? Second, this sort of legislation does not encourage the sort of outcome desired (i.e. that party membership reflects constituency membership) - what's far more likely to happen is that people who don't care about the issues but do fit some ethnic tick-box will be courted for membership and subsequently ignored, thus reinforcing ethnic divides. This kind of well-intentioned but harmful thinking would be likely to increaese exponentially if we gave our government the control over party funding.

C is no good because of the ethno-diversity thing. Corporate contributions musn't be allowed because the government is meant to serve the interests of the people, which I wold maintain does not include corporations, so why should they take part. their disproportionate wealth will give them too much power to get a party supporting their interests into government, and will also cause, as Bob Hoyle said, they buying of political favours.I agree that it is problemtic to provide funds on the basis of seats gained, because how can an election campaign be run on the basis of money you hope to gain. It is even more problematic if you were interested in funding candidates rather than parties on the basis of votes subsequently gained, because it then requires individuals to undertake personal financial risk, which excludes some sections of the population. However I do like the idea of funding going to constituencies rather than parties, as this could make it more likely for there to be local candidates whose starting point is the interests of their constitutents rather than the interests of their party.

Does C mean that State funding would only go to constituency rather than central parties (with a ban on passing it on?), or merely that whatever State funding went to constituency parties would be allocated upon such criteria, with a silence as to by what criteria any central funding would be allocated?

I take it that we are to assume the continuation of constituencies of different sizes, as well of course of different ethnic compositions. Are we to assume an allocation that takes these variations into account or is indifferent to them?

Does D mean that no new parties could have State funding in the first election contested but would be eligiblle if still in existence to contest another one? How would existing parties be treated when this was brought in? Retrospectively funded, or would all face a level playing field without State funding the first time round after coming into force? (The latter would do something to address the status quo problem.) Or more simply, does it mean that funding would be available after that first election whether towards election expenses or for other purposes?

E seems really bizarre -on what basis would community and charity work be evaluated, and how would they be distinguished from political activity? (As Mary Tylor points out, a vast and shadowy apparatus of enforcement is conjured up, besides a vast and shady apparatus of ulteriorly motivated and dubious "activities".) And if raising £X for the local hospice or domestic violence refuge guarentees £Y for the party, say, fairly mechanically, to avoid many complexities, then surely caps, bans on corporate donors, transparency are all undone and corruption and old night return.

In F, do you envisage the candidates having a personal responsibility for election expenditure rather than the parties? And current restrictions on candidate/constituency expenditure? Or are you thinking of the State funding as enabling future political activity? (The defeated candidates maintaining a watching brief, etc. -giving an advantage to existing candidates over party rivals for the nomination the next time round?)

{Ed. Not all your questions are directed at the consensors, but I'll try to answer those which are.

Funds paid to a constituency would be just that, but I don't think the original proposer of the idea had envisaged bans on transfers or whatever.

Current rules on expenditure already take the size of a constituency into account.

D does not prevent a first-timer from receiving funds; it depends upon its result, that's all (even if that's quite a lot).

The wording in F is to ensure that it applies to independent candidates as well as to party ones.

Peter Emerson.}

In some ways I am drawn to E. I like the idea of a link with community participation and the emphasis on the local constituency. I also approve of the tighter controls on nationwide activities of the parties.

However, I take issue with the idea of ethnic diversity as a criterion for funding. This is what I would expect from someone formulating these suggestions in a big city or metropolitan context. Such attitudes are annoying to those outside the large centres who already feel ignored and excluded.How could this possibly be applied in a rural area such as mine? Our main ethnic community comprises Portuguese and East European farm workers who are not voting citizens anyway. Would we be discriminated against on these grounds?  Anyway, too much concentration on minority groups smacks of the political correctness which is calculated to turn many people against the process. Be all-inclusive; don't single out particular groups and cause unnecessary rivalries and annoyance.

Probably the best of an imperfect lot. Unlike the options which limit state funding altogether it encourages the growth of new parties. and although this is risky as they'd incur costs to ensure meeting the voting threshold, it also means that parties long established would remain loyal to the electorate, well in theory anyhow...