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I assume Americans spend more on political campaigns than any other country. It's embarassing to see the millions these guys spend to slander each other while not quite saying anything. I'd like to see a change.



How do elections proceed in other countries? Is there a campaign? Where does the money come from?





etc etc etc etc..........

Accountable wrote: I assume Americans spend more on political campaigns than any other country. It's embarassing to see the millions these guys spend to slander each other while not quite saying anything. I'd like to see a change.



How do elections proceed in other countries? Is there a campaign? Where does the money come from?





etc etc etc etc..........


kind of like the criminal line up, they all stand there with numbers and we make a choice...

In England, the money for campaigns comes from, obviously, the party members. But also from contributions by wealthy individuals and businesses. A hell of a lot of money goes into our campaigns as well.

OpenMind wrote: In England, the money for campaigns comes from, obviously, the party members. But also from contributions by wealthy individuals and businesses. A hell of a lot of money goes into our campaigns as well.
In our system, a rich person can spend his/her own funds and avoid legal spending caps. Also, politicians are allowed to keep whatever contributions they don't spend onthe campaign. Do you have such problems?

Accountable wrote: In our system, a rich person can spend his/her own funds and avoid legal spending caps. Also, politicians are allowed to keep whatever contributions they don't spend onthe campaign. Do you have such problems?


Here, donations are made to the party. Donations made to an individual would be taxable. Alternatively, a donation can be made for a particular purpose on behalf of the party, i.e., the donor would pay directly for a meeting hall and catering, etc. This latter would get round spending caps.

Many would say it curtails freedom of speech, and I'm ambivalent myself, but I'd like to explore possibly capping the spending on a given campaign, full stop. Get the money where you will, but you can only spend X.



Not sure how effective it would be though. Anybody can purchase advert time for any reason. The cap would be easy to get around.

The political process, here at any rate, is one I would like to see change quite radically, let alone capping political campaigns. The inherent elitism all seems pathetic and contradictory to me. But it is true that the party with the most money at their disposal tends to come out on top, although, this is not always so. Nonetheless, I sense that things go on behind the scenes that the electorate is unaware of and which denies us a true democratic process.

Right now, our party leaders are in meetings together about the apparent political apathy of the electorate as they are concerned about the ever-decreasing votes being cast. This worries me as they should really be each trying to determine how to win our votes. Instead, I sense yet another piece of legislation is going to be heaped upon us.

The UK electoral system is based on ‘first past the post’ or a simple majority in a constituency. Where there are more than two candidates (as is generally the case) the system can be (actually IS) utterly unfair as a situation such as we have now where far more people didn’t vote for NuLabour than did still saw NuLabour returned with a very large majority.

NuLabour got 55% of the seats but only 36% of the votes cast

The Conservatives got only 30% of the seats but 33% of the votes cast

The Liberal Dem’s got 10% of the seats but 22% of the votes cast

The relationship between England and Scotland where Scottish MP’s get to vote on issues that affect England, yet English MP’s can not vote in the Scottish Parliament is also a far from satisfactory situation.

Today we have the awful Blair and his sycophants in office even though they only attracted some 36% of the votes cast, yet took 66 more ‘seats’ than in short far more people didn’t want NuLabour, and yet that is what we got stuck with.

There is something VERY wrong with UK politics at present made even worse by the utterly dictatorial manner in which Blair is acting.

We got problems.

We got problems.


This is truly an extreme understatement!!

Who infulences parties concerns us here as well. There have been recent changes to the way politicail parties can receive funds a to make the amounts more transparent so that any large single donations are more visible. There are limits to what can be spent in each constitiency

http://www.bized.co.uk/current/argument/arg17-5.htm

Party Political Funding: Paying the Politicians at Poll Time

Donations to UK political parties

Currently, most political funding comes from private donations. The Labour Government receives most of its funds from private sources, although the proportion taken up is lower than in the case of the Conservative Party. This is because, traditionally, Labour has received funding from trade unions that are affiliated to the party. Labour has become less dependent upon trade union subscriptions in recent years. In 1992, two thirds of its total funding came from the unions; today that figure is around one quarter.

After high profile cases of sleaze in the 1990s, such as the 'cash for questions' scandal, a new system of greater transparency was introduced by the Government to try to reassure the public about British politics being 'clean'. Under the PPERA:

* All national donations (to the central party organisation) over £5000 must be declared

* All local donations (to a local branch of a party) in excess of £1000 also must be declared

* Donations made by listed companies must be approved by the firms' shareholders

* Parties can only receive donations of more than £200 from 'permissible donors'

* Non-cash support is counted as a donation

* Donation reports have to be sent to the electoral commission every quarter of the year

* During a general election, parties have to report every week detailing donations received in excess of £5000

While out of power they all take the moral high ground but once in all of them become amoral when oit comes to their own interests.

posted by accountable

Many would say it curtails freedom of speech, and I'm ambivalent myself, but I'd like to explore possibly capping the spending on a given campaign, full stop. Get the money where you will, but you can only spend XNot being cynical or anything but I bet it's only the ones with enough money to buy lots of free speech that come out with that arguement.

How is it the attempts of ordinary citizens to curb small groups with lots of money in their ability to influence govt to help their interests becomes an attack on free speech to which people nod sagely and agree in principle, and yet what they are doing is somehow in the interests of democracy and freedom of speech.



posted by golem

The relationship between England and Scotland where Scottish MP’s get to vote on issues that affect England, yet English MP’s can not vote in the Scottish Parliament is also a far from satisfactory situation.The "west Lothian Question" I agree with you there its very wrong. I wish English MP's would hurry up and get annoyed about it.

gmc wrote: [...]

Not being cynical or anything but I bet it's only the ones with enough money to buy lots of free speech that come out with that arguement.



How is it the attempts of ordinary citizens to curb small groups with lots of money in their ability to influence govt to help their interests becomes an attack on free speech to which people nod sagely and agree in principle, and yet what they are doing is somehow in the interests of democracy and freedom of speech.

[...]
Who would ever accuse you of cynicism? :wah: I don't see a way around it. Sure the gov't could limit how much one can give to a campaign, and limit how much a party or candidate can spend. But how can gov't limit Mr. Millionaire, private citizen, from buying advertising space for whatever he may use it?



One can endorse a given candidate without even mentioning a name. One only needs to push for a given stance on the biggest issues. How can the gov't stop that??