tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6693950082152211516.post3277724533042008434..comments2023-10-26T00:08:26.205+01:00Comments on The Boiling Frog: Blah Blah BlahTheBoilingFroghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00791961503315586243noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6693950082152211516.post-87662863199929711012012-07-03T16:35:18.144+01:002012-07-03T16:35:18.144+01:00The basic problem at the heart of all this is how ...The basic problem at the heart of all this is how political parties are funded in this country, and what they are and are not permitted to spend money on. <br /><br />Because election spending is strictly limited, political parties don't actually need all that much money to tick over. Labour can subsist mostly on donations from the few remaining unions that support them, and the Tories on a relatively small number of major contributors.<br /><br />The end effect here is that because none of them actually *need* large memberships of ordinary party members, none of them have these large ordinary memberships, and all the political parties have thus moved away from needing to pander to the views of a lot of small people and need please only a few major backers.<br /><br />This divorces the political parties from popular thought and feeling. Thus it is that none of our political masters have yet realised how deeply the common voter despises the EU and how deeply a referendum on the matter is needed. It is also the case that no major politician has yet managed to explain just what is so utterly wonderful about giving away our sovereignty to an unaccountable foreign power.<br /><br />Really, a limit on individual donation sizes (counting unions, companies, corporations and people each as individual donors) is urgently needed to rectify this deficiency. That this would cause a crisis in political funding is undeniable; it would, but this is precisely what is needed to rectify the situation and force politicians to actually think for a change.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6693950082152211516.post-45370411566615137142012-07-02T14:29:22.864+01:002012-07-02T14:29:22.864+01:00@James Higham Absolutely I agree, I didn't see...@James Higham Absolutely I agree, I didn't see it until after I wrote my own post<br /><br />http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2012/07/01/media-lead-story-no-change-on-referendum-about-eu-membership/<br /><br />@DeeDee99 I agree pressure is the only thing that talks - not only UKIP but also the EU crisis, which has meant our political class can no longer ignore it much as they try. Watching them wriggle as a result in discomfort is a kind of compensatory joy...TheBoilingFroghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00791961503315586243noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6693950082152211516.post-73407334343859818142012-07-02T08:27:27.226+01:002012-07-02T08:27:27.226+01:00Weak, clueless, unprincipled .... and sh!t scared ...Weak, clueless, unprincipled .... and sh!t scared that UKIP will wipe the boards in the 2014 EU Elections (if the Kommissars permit them to go ahead) and a sizeable UKIP vote in the next GE will deny the CONs a second term.<br /><br />This Referendum hint from Cameron means nothing- except the issue won't go away and the demands to leave the EU are going to grow. The longer people are thwarted and denied the right to decide, the angrier they get. <br /><br />We must keep up the pressure.DeeDee99https://www.blogger.com/profile/06753473473887381622noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6693950082152211516.post-88271916978319768712012-07-02T08:27:11.852+01:002012-07-02T08:27:11.852+01:00Autonomous Mind did a good one too.Autonomous Mind did a good one too.James Highamhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14525082702330365464noreply@blogger.com