Pay As You Go

So, a parliamentary committee recommends that political parties should not be able to nominate for directly for peerages, in an attempt to rebuild trust with the electorate. But surely the question of trust must address the funding of political parties.

For trust to be rebuilt it must become impossible for anyone to buy influence. The only way to do this is to fund political parties from the public purse and ban all political fund-raising activities. The only additinal funding allowed would be membership subscriptions.

Then "he who pays the piper calls the tune" would be the order of the day. Perhaps that might bring us a bit nearer to democracy.

For the record, I belong to no political party, nor do I support any. No one represents me, though I do have an MP and MSP; I speak for myself.