This weekend the Sunday Politics programme revealed several issues of note. As I wrote yesterday an interview with Angela Eagle disclosed that the Labour Party and by implication other parties still have expectations that there will be a major renaissance in party membership. It seems clear that any significant change in attitude towards political decision making will depend on all of us finding new ways of doing politics. Any widespread engagement will not fundamentally revitalise old structures, as disappointing as that might be for Angela and her colleagues. The reason that Angela Eagle raised the issue of party membership was to counter criticisms of Union control of the party. This is linked to funding which was the reason why one of the other guests was challenged about their own party expenditure.

Patrick McLoughlin, MP for Derbyshire Dales and Secretary of State for Transport is one of the few MPs to have been a manual worker prior to arriving in Parliament and perhaps because of this he appears to be a great deal more down to earth than some of his colleagues. As the discussion about party funding unfolded Patrick was pressed about the cost of election campaigns. His response was very revealing although not in a reassuring way. He said “I am open to discussions on spending less on the elections”. It seems probable that Patrick McLoughlin was not offering to discuss election spending with the smaller parties such as UKIP and the Greens, let alone any of the Independent candidates who will stand at the next General Election. His offer was clearly targeted at Angela Eagle and perhaps he is willing to extend this to the Lib Dems.

At the last General Election there was a ceiling on expenditure of £30,000 per constituency or £19.4M for each national party, plus a figure for each candidate of £7,150 plus 5p per elector in each urban area and 7p per elector in each rural area which equates to around £10,000 for each candidate. These are substantial amounts of money and any discussion and decision will be taken by people like Patrick and Angela, not the likes of you and I. Perhaps we should not be troubled by such matters, it is after all not our money that is being spent and we deserve to really understand what these political parties have to offer us. However there is at least one counter perspective.

As a candidate in the Police and Crime Commissioner elections in November 2012 our area had an upper limit on election expenses of nearly £220,000, for each candidate. This was not a figure that was breached in any way. After the reckoning all five candidates spent around £45,000 between us. This was not spread evenly. The winning candidate spent 82% of the total, the second placed candidate spent 11% of the total and as the third placed candidate I spent about 0.8% of the total. If you want to find out more check out my blog. Whilst elections cannot be won purely on finances (I spent one quarter of the amount spent by the Liberal Democratic Party Candidate, yet received twice as many votes) financial support can help to pay for publicity material and pay for campaign staff.

It is time that decisions about election expenses, just like decisions about MPs expenses are put into the hands of the same people who elect our MPs and ultimately pay their wages. If that was the intention behind IPSA it is clear that the objective was not met. The organisation has a board that is chaired by a knighted Professor and includes one other knight and one other Professor plus two other members without title or rank and its CEO. This is not a reflection of the electorate. It is vital that all legitimate political parties can resource their campaigns in a meaningful way. However £20M is clearly an obscene amount of money to spend on an election, just as £220,000 was an obscene amount to set as the threshold for the Sussex PCC elections. We need a structure that doesn’t leave Independent candidates or small parties struggling against the spending power of major parties which also possess a substantial advantage in terms of volunteers and paid staff.

The fascinating element is the proportion between the party spending (only relevant if you are part of a political party) and candidate spending. In each election the Party can spend three times the amount that each candidate can spend in each constituency. There should be a realistic overall limit, and if the parties are to be able to spend in addition to the candidates expenses, this should put the largest spending power in the hands of the local candidate!