A petition system eg signature collection of eligible voters that entitles the candidate to register and be eligible for a government grant to pay for campaign costs. A system that creates a level playing field.

if I understand your idea johnny, the money is paid to the candidate and not the party they are standing for?

Would you allow candidates to get funding from outside of the state?

Looking at this, it could work for all levels of election.

I can't think of an easy solution that would be free from corruption. The only way would be for a much smaller, possibly state level but even that is too large, government. Otherwise everything is driven by big money, big media, and at the scale that it is, it can't be monitored for corruption effectively.

For example, Hillary getting 1/2 a million dollars in donations from Chinatown. EVERYONE knows that something corrupt happened there, but all they can do is mention it. It is too easy for big money to hide itself and corrupt the system.

This may seem off topic at first but just bear with me:

One of the biggest problems with Communism is that is seems to operate in contrast to human nature, and therefor is inherently unstable. The Soviet system of government allowed all power of the state to flow up to the top, making it in actuality an aristocracy of the party, a bureaucracy of immense and wasteful proportions out of touch with the common man.

When are people going to realize that our capitalist system is no different then Soviet communism. Lets take a look at the broad effects our system has on our society.

Capitalism is unnatural. Like communism, capitalism cannot exist in a natural state as it will destroy itself in such a state. For example, without socialist regulations, business will consolidate resources in a capitalist system over and over until there is only one business that provides every service, a super monopoly. Without regulations to prevent this it is the natural course of capitalism. But at that point is it still capitalism? No. So rather then finding a system that works naturally, we artificially maintain a broken system by borrowing elements of another broken system.

Capitalism and democracy cannot coexist. A democracy isn't a democracy if every individual doesn't have an even voice. Sure we each get one vote (usually, if we ignore things like the electoral college) but to say that makes us a democracy would be naive at best. What really makes the gears turn in our society is money. And to say that the man working at 7/11 has just as much opportunity to voice his opinion as Bill Gates would be absurd. So the more money you have the better you are able to invest in propaganda to get your opinions out there. This will never change as long as our society and economics don't change. No laws will ever change this, because the people with the power now are the people with money. They aren't going to support the dissemination of power they already posses amongst the masses. It's very unlikely.

So rather then worrying about how to fix our broken system, people should worry about how to replace it, and with what? I mean, communism and capitalism aren't the only economic possibilities out there people. There is no universal law that dictates such. Be creative, start thinking of alternatives, and think about natural law and human nature when doing so. An ideal system would take advantage of the good and bad aspects of our nature to produce a society that is fair and equitable for all it's members. I don't see any ways such a society can exist with centralized government, as such centralization goes against the very idea of freedom. Rather, peacekeeping should happen on a global scale and governance on a local scale.

So rather then trying in vain to fix something that can't be fixed because it's natural state is broken, why not affect real change in the world by gathering like minded individuals and starting an intentional community that's run the way you all as a community see fit. Go out and make an example of yourselves, show the world that you can in fact live a normal, happy life without the "system", as we've done it for most of human history. The system in any form has always been a tool of oppression. It won't be destroyed through violent revolution either, as violence creates conflict and conflict requires a "system" to maintain the war machine and coordinate the battles. Such centralization of military might is a recipe for oppression.

Just my 2c, have a great day.

To prevent the use of all financial interests from influencing there spin on things then any private or public donations would have to outlawed and once the candidate is legally recognised as a canditate then an appropriate amount is issued to the said canditate and his spending is of course audited. Equal time is allotted to all canditates on all media used.

What if 100 million people wanted to run? How do you choose who gets the funding?

We could start by making prospective parties and individuals wishing to be elected responsible for what they say and promise to do for the electorate under the trade discriptions act.That would reduce the numbers wanting the job, therefor less cost.They would have to prove that they had sufficient numbers of supporters to warrant funding.The funding should be decided by a body of people who have no connections to any political party whatsoever.Funding should be provided from public funds and repayed after the elections have taken place,over the elected period.Just afew ideas to play with

China12, I wanted to explore your idea a little further.

I like the idea of making our leaders responsible for what they say and promise. I suppose we have ability at every election to judge the parties on their promises but who remembers all the commitments made. We have to relay typically on the opposition parties to highlight the commitments made and not delivered on. And they have a valid reason for bring these to our attention.

Who would police the commitments made and if they have been delivered against? Not sure if you can have a body of people who have not connection to any political party. If you vote, you have a connection so I do not see how this would work unless we had a professional body of people who choice not to vote.

You mentioned that a political party would have to have sufficient number of supporters to warrent funding. What numbers were you thinking of?

And of course, who sets the number. If we have state funding, then I want as open a field as possible. The flip side of this could mean that far right and left parties could get funding.

You talking about funding coming from public funds then being repayed after the election. Who would the parties fund this repay?

I had always seen state funding as just that, with no repay which would have to be funded by activitists who seems to defeat the objection of a better way to fund political parties.

Hi freedom,sorry about the delay,xmas and all that.To be honest i haven`t given it a lot of thought, but lets give it a try.Lets start with funding .If you want to form a party from scratch it won`t be easy,no funding by the state.This will in it`s self have a limiting affect on the number of parties.You get funding by joining fee!No blocks i.e unions or business will be allowed ,individuals only.I doubt you would have to remember promises as the media would be only to glad to do it for you.The hardest part to me would be finding the right people to monitor the whole thing .These people would have to be open to scrutiny by everybody.The problem of a democracy is that you can`t exclude anyone ,if you do you stop being a democracy.Just a few thoughts off the top.Have a healthy and wealthy new year

china12, you raise a good point about starting a political party and I would recommend listening to one of Justin Oldham's podcasts on a third political party in the US.

If we had state funding of political parties there would have to be provision for parties dropping out and new parties coming up and I would suggest that funding be based on an agreed number of paid up members. What about 1 million? Based on this, no party in the UK would get state funding. So what is a realistic number?

Of course, any group of people who are monitoring political parties for honestywould have to be open to scrutiny. The question would be how to elect so to speak the people who would be on this group.

And then what sanition would you apply to a party?

Hi Freedom,happy new year to you.I don`t think numbers are that important initialy as the newly formed party will be self funding through subscription.To be funded by the state the numbers would matter and they could set at a reasonable figure ,say 100,000 to trigger funding at the lower rate,funding would rise in proportion to membership.How about having judges on the commity,not perfect but you have to start somewhere.Punishing parties for breaking the rules is a difficult one.Lets just say that the more serious breaches of the rules must include lying and fraudand the guilty must lose their freedom ,job,and a big fine!You will have noticed i stopped short of the firing squad,only just.Just some more thoughts.

I like the idea of a fireing squad but it seems it is already been used in some countries.

If we move to the idea of policing what political parties say, we then need to define in any law the grounds for punishment. Just when is a lie a lie.

We have an example in the UK. The ruling Government, the Labour party promised the British people a referendum on the EU constitution. In the last few months, the EU has revised the document that was called the constitution and not called it a constitution. The UK Government is now saying as this is not the EU constitution, there is no need for a referendum.

Would this be classed as lying?

As i understand it ,at the moment MPs are not allowed to call each other liars inside the debating chamber, but they have another phrase they use BEING ECONOMICLE WITH THE TRUTH.iT is difficult to difine a lie when it comes to politics.The example you use is a good one.It is no longer called a constitutional document and they don`t have to honour their comitment to the electorate.Its called POLITICS.We know it is just a face saving move by the EU .We have cameron jumping on every band wagon he can find and telling us what he would do if he was in power, now that is when polititions start to tell lies.They lie nowing that the moment they get the power they crave they can introduce the hidden policies that they had every intention of introducing.The rest get dismissed as being unable to be introduced because THE BOOKS ARE WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT!They are telling lies.We must hold these people to their word,and when they are found out in a lie they must leave any position they hold and they must not be allowed to take up any oficial post again.They may also have to make good any monies that their lies have caused to be lost .Short of shooting them what else can be done?

China12, you have hit the nail right on the head. How can we ensure that public funds are used fairly and for the common good.

We all seem to agree that an element of public funding is a sensible idea, but it needs to be policed. Even if we think this is a good idea, is this one of the things we want our taxes spent on. It could come down to a simple choice. Funding of political parties or additional police/nurses/doctors/teachers?

Would we allow parties to get funding outside of the state?

freedomERP.Why can`t we have it all.Just take a look at the money this and previous govts have wasted on ill thought out projects like the dome .We as tax payers are being milked to the tune of billions of pounds by contracts for public building projects being falsly tendered,and having to pay massive overun costs.This may well come under the heading of lieing to the public to get a project passed in parliement.There are many ways to find the monies required (northen rock 60 billion) if the will is there.As for out of state funding it must be no.We already have rich people giving money to parties in this country and it begs the question, why.It opens the door to interference from out side and we have enough of that from Brussles. No,if we are going to change politics in this country we have to be firm about no funding of any description to aid political parties or other organisations afiliated to them no matter how loosely.I feel so much better for getting that off my chest.

I heard you on the dome. A huge waste of money but how much of the dome funding was influenced by donors to the Labour party?? I suspect the dome was the result of the last PM's ego!!

On Northern Rock, I think the Government had little choice but to offer to protect the depositors money and to give loans. We could hardly has let the bank go under. Again, I see no links to party funding, just a Government reacting to events.

If I understand what you are saying, and I have had a dim day all round , only state funding of parties would be allowed as this would prevent undue influence on party policy.

freedomERP.I am still in favour of self funding .You only qualify for state funding ( which is repayable after elections) when it is proved that your party is a credible one i.e you have suficient membership.Repaying will hopefully limit their spending!No external funding to try and limit any financial input from external parties who may wish to influence policies.I only used northern rock as an example of the availability of funds when it suits.This highlights the lie THE BOOKS ARE WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT. To even begin to clean up politics would take a massive push from the electorate and i dont see that happening any time in the near future,do you?

Got carried away elsewhere on this site.....it happens.....

You mentioned that state funding would be repayment after the elections and that the repayment of this funding would come from the dues/fees the party members pay each week/month or what ever. For this work, there would have to be published members fees for each party, and don't get me wrong, this is a good thing.

Are you saying china12 that no one could give any political party a donation? And what about local party fund raising with say a jumble sale or a raffle? Would that be covered by any rules on party funding?