West Wing - go figure

By Danial Hannan

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Even Right-wingers are addicted to the series: for all its Leftist bias, it generally allowed conservative arguments to be advanced, often with more eloquence than we get from real-life Tory politicians.

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If Conservatives enjoyed the programme, Labour professionals wanted to live in it. They dreamt of the opulent backdrops, fantasised about the huge secretariats, drooled over the thought that even middle-ranking officials could wield such vast powers. Then they looked around at their drab party headquarters and they said to themselves: "This will not do!" Hence the swanky new offices on Victoria Street.

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Hence the engorged party payroll, which now costs £12.8 million a year in staff and pensions. Hence Labour's financial crisis. And hence the near inevitability that you will be asked to fund the shortfall. All because, as a Labour insider told this newspaper yesterday: "They thought they were in The West Wing. "

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At least no one can accuse Labour of hypocrisy. The party has run itself in much the same way that it has governed Britain: hiring people until the money runs out, and then going to the taxpayer for more. It is natural enough, I suppose, that the big-government faction should favour the nationalisation of party funding. The odd thing is that the other parties are also going along with the idea.

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Part of the explanation has to do with straightforward self-interest. Asking politicians whether there should be state funding for parties is like asking farmers whether there should be state funding for agriculture: they may have a good deal of expertise, but they are not disinterested.

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This is especially so when, as at present, they have uneasy consciences. The more we learn about the recent soliciting of loans, the more it looks as if all three parties have broken the rules. They understandably fear an electoral backlash. At the very least, they know that it will be harder to solicit donations in future. So why not get rid of the whole distasteful business of fundraising and replace it with a transparent system of government subsidy?

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There are four answers. First, public subvention is not a cure for, but a cause of, political corruption. When people know that there is a pot of gold waiting to be claimed, they arrange their affairs around qualifying for it.

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Look at the countries where parties are most dependent on the taxpayer: France, where more than 1,000 elected officials have been convicted of offences under party funding rules; Germany, where Helmut Kohl's government fell after a party financing scandal involving briefcases full of banknotes; Italy, where nearly half of all MPs are or have been under police investigation.

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Ah, you say, but what about America, where politicians are so dependent on private money that they have become vessels of big business?

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Actually, this is less and less true. The fastest-growing source of political contributions in America is the internet, where most donations come in units of $50 or less. This phenomenon allows outsiders with interesting things to say - Howard Dean, for example - to take on their party bigwigs.

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Which brings us to the second objection. Politicians are already seen as remote and arrogant. How much worse would that problem be if they were able to compel money from their constituents by law, instead of having to ask politely? Again, look at Europe, where lavish subsidies have created a para-state career structure. A graduate can move seamlessly from his party apparatus to ministerial office without ever working in the real world. Unsurprisingly, having spent his career swimming in the ocean of taxpayers' money, he is rarely a tax-cutter by the time he comes to power.

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Point three: state funding allows existing parties to form a cartel against newcomers. Or, to put it another way, it shields them from the consequences of their unpopularity, because there is nowhere else to go. At the same time, once the government begins to pay for parties, it starts to tell them what to believe. In Belgium, there are moves to deny funding to the Flemish separatists on the ground that they threaten the unity of the state. In Holland, a court has ruled that a Christian party should forfeit its financial entitlement because it does not believe in sex equality. In the EU, trans-national parties are required to accept "the values of the European Union".

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But perhaps the best rebuttal of the case is the obvious one: what bloody cheek. Caught breaking their own rules, the political parties demand that the rest of the country should pay them with sufficient generosity to remove them from further temptation.

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The solution? Parties should spend less. The past three general elections have been, by some measure, the most expensive ever. Yet turnout keeps falling and, of those who do cast their ballots, unprecedented numbers are eschewing the three main parties. Which raises an interesting question.

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Might it be the very slickness of the big campaigns that is driving voters towards the Blaenau Gwent independents, UKIP, Save Kidderminster Hospital and the other low-budget candidates?

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The record for money spent per voter is held by the pro-euro movement in Sweden's 2003 referendum, which I happened to observe. The result? A 20-point lead was reversed, precisely because voters recoiled from the extravagance of the "Yes" campaign.

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Go back to those West Wing characters, pedi-conferencing through the White House corridors. Watch closely and you will see a political system that forces modesty on its principals. Behind every quip and wisecrack is a recognition that the voter is the boss. You can't imagine Alastair Campbell talking like that, can you? As the Americans say, go figure.

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Daniel Hannan is a Tory MEP

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