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.

I don't know, but I'm thinking what The Times' Sports Editor (no, really) Martin Samuel is thinking:

Only in our system does this damnable trade-off masquerade as democracy; only in Britain does the idea proliferate that an anti-war, pro-civil liberties voter should, in some places, give his support to a pro-war, anti-civil liberties government, just to stop an even more right-wing party getting in. Under a PR system and it really is this simple, folks — a vote for the (anti-war, pro-civil liberties) Liberal Democrats would count.

(Via MakeMyVoteCount, an Electoral Reform Society co-production)

So, which party's leader came out with the following quote in the last few days?

People don't mind paying tax, as long as they get something in return.

Looking at The BBC's FAQ on the Human Rights Act as applied to travellers:

Q: So what role does the Human Rights Act play? Do travellers have more rights that others?

The act says everybody has the same rights which should not be unduly infringed by government or other public bodies. It does not confer more rights to one group over another. Its key feature is that officials should treat everyone equally by properly assessing their case.

Q: And how do these rights apply to travellers' settlements?

Travellers argue their right to a family life becomes an issue if councils don't fairly and equally assess their case for housing, taking into account the unique situation of their way of life.

Put at its simplest, if a council bans Gypsy caravans from a field because it's in an agricultural area, but it then allows a developer to put homes on the land, that would prompt a discrimination challenge.

But if a council proves that it has treated travellers equally and fairly, and given them adequate options or support to find a solution, then there would be no grounds for a challenge.

it's instructive to compare the Tories' plan of reviewing (with intent to repeal/neutralise) the Human Rights Act and providing the legal backup to compulsorily buy land owned by Gypsies. with the handy Definition of Fascism:

The most notable characteristic of a fascist country is the separation and persecution or denial of equality to a specific segment of the population

So, our dear would be leaders are trying to score cheap 'reduce your tax' points by claiming they can find some GBP30bn in savings on non-frontline services.

Now I've not read the James report (177 pages of PDF? I've got better things to do with my time, and I'd wager that a good percentage of Tory PPCs have too), but I would guess that you won't find the following in the list:

• Killing all internal markets and associated paperwork
• While we're at it, killing most of the double-double-double checking to make sure that a single benefits claimant doesn't get overpaid a penny (and never mind if some get underpaid)
• Killing the ID Card scheme and whizz-bang-machine-that-goes-ping immigration high tech schemes designed soley to increase fear in the population.