Fundraiser

The on-going row over Labour funding by the unions and their constant and quite correct haranguing of the Conservatives and their big-ticket donors isn’t going to die any day soon. It’s an established principle that the paymaster calls the tune and no amount of naysaying will ever change that. Both parties may as well incorporate contributors’ logos in their literature and feature a ten-second sponsor’s ident at each end of their party political broadcasts. Maybe they could all wear a sort of uniform, so we know? At least then all our MPs would look like touring sports teams instead of the bags-of-shite way some of their mothers dress them. (No open-top bus rides, mind.)

Add to this the announcement of MP pay rises (whether they jolly well want it or not!) and the earning of second incomes and it’s no wonder nobody trusts the political class any longer. There has to be a fair way and neither side has any workable solution – that is, no solution that finds favour with their opposite numbers. It’s almost as if – and I know I’m going out on a limb here – it’s almost as if they are not working for us at all but simply behaving like NHS senior administrators and seeing how quickly they can divvy up the big, luxury pie amongst themselves and their mates.

The thorny question of paying for our representation in Parliament isn’t a new issue at all; it has always been recognised that men of independent means don’t necessarily have dispassionate principles and bought men are ever mindful of their owners’ demands. Well, in a parliamentary democracy are we not the owners? Isn’t it about time we fitted the muzzles, tightened the leash and brought them to heel? I have a number of suggestions that could revolutionise the way our politicians are bought and paid for.

Some say pay MPs from the collective public purse. I say pay from the individual purses of the public. Instead of scrawling your X on the ballot paper, I propose a far more direct form of selection. A fiver a vote and MPs selected every year. This is how it works: in a scheme adapted from Lapland, all MPs and their rivals gyrate at poles in the polling hall (see what I did there?) and voters deposit a fiver in the g-strings of their favourite. The one with the most money at the end of the day wins and that’s their annual salary, right there. The losers have to donate their takings to pay for the NHS.

The Piñata Poll. Every year on College Green, Andrew Neil presides over the annual party funding event, whereby a gigantic paper donkey (or donkeys - I’m not ruling out spreading the joy) stuffed with £50 notes is beaten with sticks by blindfolded members of the lower chamber, egged on by their ennobled elders. Each Party collects as much as it can and the one with the largest haul forms the next year’s government. What they have in their pockets is the year’s budget and the losing parties are responsible for coughing up the costs of Parliament

Now, I realise that each method proposed is likely to result in hung parliaments or frequently changing leaders but I see that as more of a positive. While MPs are diverted by scheming to get the lion’s share of the next funding exercise, grubbing around like the pigs in shit they all repeatedly demonstrate themselves to be, the Civil Service can get on with the job of running the country, largely free from party interference. The resulting period of stability might just be what the country needs.

Monster Raving Loonies at Annual Spending Review

How do we fund the costs of the Civil Service? Well, who can forget the glorious sporting highlight of 1987? Let me remind you – June 1987 was the date of It’s A Royal Knockout. Let’s resurrect that format and then the whole country can laugh along as the Health, Education, Defence, Foreign and Home affairs teams slug it out to share the loot. It will be just like the good old days, except perhaps for Stuart Hall.

The Falkirk Dilemma

In these straitened times, choices have to be made. Over the last winter the opposition made much play of the supposed fact that some families had to decide whether to heat or eat their children*(*This may not be true). They went on to make political capital from the fear that lifestyles had to be altered and choices made; capital they then went on to squander by continuing to behave as they always did, as revealed in the recent Falkirk ‘crisis’. Maybe we should all be changing our behaviour in any case; the last twenty years of believing we could have everything has made us all fat and lazy.

You can go all out for thrift – an approach championed by the Frugal Queen who has set a challenge to live as cheaply, in monetary terms, as practicable, eventually to live a debt-free, sustainable lifestyle. Or you could just decide to live within your means and make simple choices following a cost-benefit analysis, or whatever the young and trendy consultants are calling it these days. In other words, how much bang are you getting for your buck? (And how is Buck these days?)

For instance, I no longer lease a private Learjet to travel to Birmingham. A bit of research showed that after paying the £2000 per hour, plus the airport fees, parking, standby charges and all the rest, it still takes two hours door-to-door. It turns out I can do that journey in my car, for about £20 in fuel – who knew? And even better, I don’t have to book it in advance, lodge flight plans, or put up with airport delays. It’s amazing what you can learn… if you can be arsed.

So, this CBA, how does it work? Easy really, all you do is compare the relative costs and benefits of competing choices. Take for instance, booze or books: A paperback costs about the same as a half-decent new-world wine, so which should you choose? Let’s examine the relevant facts:

That book will entertain you for perhaps a dozen hours over several days, if not weeks, you’ll be transported to another world, or possibly learn something life-enhancing and at the end of the ride you’ll still have the book. Opting for a bottle of wine, however, you will be lucky to spin it out for two hours, after which you’ll yearn for more. You may give in to that urge and pick up some fattening fast food to accompany it, as a result of which you’ll wake up late, feeling like shit having put on weight and taken another step toward hopeless addiction and the possibility of developing chronic, life-shortening medical conditions. See how CBA reveals the solution to your dilemma? Now the choice is a no-brainer; Shiraz or a nice Pinotage?

Another example - Telly or Training? One of the evils of our twenty-four-seven, media flooded lives is the danger of stagnating, slumped in front of a screen, watching mindless pap as muscles atrophy and joints seize up. Bed sores are a distinct possibility, along with blurred vision and tinnitus and in extremis becoming biologically fused with the settee. Of course, the benefits of regular exercise are well documented. It helps maintain a healthy body, prolonging active life and a feeling of well-being and even smug superiority over lesser mortals. A vigorous workout can leave you feeling lifted; the rush from those endorphins flooding your brain is said to be better than sex. A healthy, happier, longer-living you. On the other hand, gym membership costs a fortune and you’re already paying the telly licence fee anyway so, no contest, Kyle it is.

Red Len or Supermen?

See? It’s so easy anybody can do it. And this could also be the way forward for the party funding debate. The choices are simple: Continue with systems that mean disproportionate influence is gained by larger donors, individually or en masse, thus attracting the criticisms of bias, corruption, fraud and the creation of puppet leaders and a disenfranchised general electorate. Or, radically overhaul the system so that voters’ preferences are properly responded to and democracy is restored? I’m not holding my breath.