{"id":297,"date":"2015-02-15T07:00:36","date_gmt":"2015-02-15T07:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/?p=297"},"modified":"2015-03-06T17:33:49","modified_gmt":"2015-03-06T17:33:49","slug":"under-the-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/under-the-influence\/","title":{"rendered":"Under the influence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Party funding scandals are painting UK politicians in a bad light<\/h4>\n

\"British<\/a><\/p>\n

Election day, May 7, will be particularly important for the future of Britain – and for Europe.<\/p>\n

A referendum on a possible \u2018Brexit\u2019 is sure to follow to any Tory win. Many are also suggesting that smaller parties may receive a greater share of the vote this time out, with columnists variously tipping the Greens, the SNP and UKIP for a breakthrough.<\/p>\n

Though none of these three – or the Liberal Democrats for that matter – will get close to winning outright, if negotiations are needed to form another coalition, their influence may become disproportionate to their share of the vote.<\/p>\n

Both governing parties often seem to reward donors with honours and titles once in office.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Influence is certainly a hot topic at the moment, especially if we look at party funding in the UK.\u00a0There has been a steady stream of stories which have painted politicians in a bad light – and both governing parties often seem to reward donors with honours and titles once in office.<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s revelations from the HSBC scandal has reignited the issue. Lord Stanley Fink, a former Conservative treasurer who has given \u00a33 million to the party, is among previous party donors who seem to have \u2018benefitted\u2019 from the bank\u2019s advice.<\/p>\n

Former trade minister Stephen Green is also causing David Cameron some problems. Labour\u2019s Ed Miliband is doing the best he can to link PM to the scandal – he called the Tory leader a \u201cdodgy prime minister\u201d this week.\u00a0But Labour\u2019s main source of funding, the\u00a0unions also leaves the party open to criticism – it has done for years.<\/p>\n

Former Tory chancellor Ken Clarke will suggest in The Observer<\/em> today that it\u2019s time for a move to a more \u2018defensible\u2019 system amid calls for a shift to state funding.\u00a0Hopefully whoever wins will look to resolve an issue that\u2019s ran for years and only damaged the general public\u2019s perceptions of politics.<\/p>\n

@urlgoeshere<\/em><\/p>\n

An edited version of this column was published in the Buenos Aires Herald<\/span><\/a><\/span>, on Sunday, February 15, 2015 as part of the ‘Perceptions’ series.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Link: http:\/\/www.buenosairesherald.com\/article\/182059\/under-the-influence<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Party funding scandals are painting UK politicians in a bad light Election day, May 7, will be particularly important for the future of Britain – and for Europe. A referendum on a possible \u2018Brexit\u2019 is sure to follow to any Tory win. Many are also suggesting that smaller parties may receive a greater share of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,38,39,37,275,41,64,99],"tags":[294,293,516,515,291,193,187,45,295,292,235,302,298,297,301,299,290,276,300,296,121],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-britain","category-buenos-aires-herald","category-comment","category-journalism","category-perceptions","category-politics","category-thoughts-2","category-world","tag-7-may-2015","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-buenos-aires-herald","tag-campaign","tag-conservative-party","tag-david-cameron","tag-ed-miliband","tag-honours","tag-hsbc","tag-influence","tag-ken-clarke","tag-labour-party","tag-liberal-democrats","tag-lord-stanley-fink","tag-party-financing","tag-party-funding","tag-perceptions","tag-stephen-green","tag-titles","tag-unions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jgrainger.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}