Listening to the recent debates about party funding, there seem to be two camps emerging:

1. Let's leave all the funding limits in place, and just make it more transparent
2. Let's further limit the amounts individuals and/or corporate bodies can give/lend to political parties, and make up the gap with state funding that won't come with the taint of political favour for sale.

Now let's be clear - I think that people should be allowed to give money to promote their political beliefs. Parties are at their heart voluntary associations, and should be allowed to rely on their membership to fund them.

However, both of the above camps make the same assumption — that parties should be allowed (no, sorry, encouraged) to maintain their current spending levels, particularly in election season. But I have two very good reasons why this is a false assumption:

1. Campaigns should be fought on the basis of who has the best ideas and policies, not who spent the most on advertising. Does anyone really actually believe that the national poster campaigns make a valid contribution to that debate? The Devil Eyes poster? The Fagin poster? Are you thinking what we're thinking? At least we don't have paid-for political TV ads here...
2. If a party can't muster a mass membership that can fund its activities, doesn't that suggest that they're not connecting with the electorate? If one or two large donations can outweigh the entire membership fees and donations of the party membership, then of course it's going to bring undue influence with it, whether that's for good old fashioned pork barrel, or fittings for ermine.

So here's my suggestion for the future of party funding:

• All donations (in cash or kind, from individual or organisation) over £1000 are to be declared publically
• No donation (in cash or kind, from individual or organisation) may be over £5000
• All donations must be attached to a specific candidate, constituency or MP, and no more than 10% of that may be transferred elsewhere (ie to Central Office)
• Donations may only come from members of the party - members of affiliated bodies (say, trade unions) don't count
• Loans may only come from FSA-accredited institutions, and be auditably part of that institution's business.
• All unsecured loans must be repayed within 1 parliamentary term (ie parties may still raise mortgages to buy property, and run an overdraft secured against real assets)
• All loans must be declared, together with their repayment terms
• All declarations must be made within 3 months, or within 28 days of an election