What I’m saying is that there’s a big difference between the legitimate public outrage at ‘cash for honours’ and the kind of hypocritical ‘outrage’ one sees from politicians, the media and others who know full well what really goes on (and in some cases are up to the necks in the same kind of thing) but still use such issues as basis to play to the gallery.

When I refer to ‘mock outrage’ I’m not making are party political point but making the observation that, amongst the ‘political classes’ – which includes politicians, the media (and political bloggers for that matter) – it is a matter of common knowledge that honours are routinely ‘traded’ for a variety of different ‘considerations’.

To give but one example, if you look at the honours lists that – by tradition – accompany the prorogation of parliament in order to hold a general election, you’ll find that on the list of new peers (on both Labour and Conservative sides) will (invariably) be the names of at least a couple of long-serving otherwise unremarkable backbench MPs whose main distinction lies in their holding down a nice safe seat.

The deal for party leaders is a simple one – you move the loyal but moribund MP to the Lords to free up a safe seat for a favoured lieutenant or an upcoming future ‘star’ and you do it at such a late stage that there’s no time to run a full local selection contest for the seat, allowing you to parachute your preferred candidate in without being seen to have shafted the local party.

At this ‘level’ we all know it goes on – together with the facility to bypass the electoral process and shunt a favourite directly in to the Lords in order to make them a minister/shadow minister – this is the only real reason why Jack Straw is desperately trying to hang on to some scope for politically appointed peers in his proposed Lords reforms.

Its also why he’s unable to advance a single cogent argument for retaining such appointments. He can’t admit the truth because it could (and would) be perceived by the public as being corrupt and undemocratic – which it is – so he drops it in without any real explanation and hopes that no one will ask too many awkward questions about why its there.

But I nearly didn’t read that far. Your arch impatience with what you call the “mock outrage” surrounding the cash for honours scandal doesn’t do your argument, or the Labour party, any favours.

Fair enough. Then I’ll just agree with machel then! What we do not want is a ‘bought’ government, no matter what stripe or flavour it may be. Which is, I think, your bottom line too?

Unlike the US, corporate political donations from the big corporations are relatively rare in the UK, largely, I suspect, because at that level they have to do business with whatever government is in charge at the time and are reluctant to be seen to be taking sides.

The issue, at present, is far more one of wealthy individuals making donations while hiding behind corporate fronts or, as in the case of the Midland Industrial Council, behind secretive unincorporated associations.

Bob:

Yes, I’d agree that there needs to be greater parity in relation to the ‘hoops’ that corporate donors have to jump through by comparison to the unions, whose donations are massively more heavily regulated.

Douglas has kindly provided the origins of the euphemism ‘Ugandan discussions’. Quite how you get the presumption of that the term is ‘racist’ from there is somewhat perplexing. I can only presume you know of some other interpretation of the term that I’m not aware of.

I’d second that. Plus a really low cap on individual contributions, to level the playing field.

This would mean that the amounts the parties could raise would be much smaller than currently. I think this is a good thing. One thing we should all seek to avoid is the situation in the US where the amount needed to compete in national politics escalates year on year, and politicians become more and more in thrall to the big donors. Arguably the US is now as much of a one-party state as China – it only appears to give voters options.

It does read a bit like one of John Milton’s essays, to be sure.

What are you thinking about? If by corporate, you mean FTSE companies or their like, it would be a matter of utter amazement to me if they did not vote 90/10 for such donations – to right wing parties.

And that’s a good thing? A suggestion. No corporate body should be allowed to give any money to any political party. That would include both my béte noir, the capitalists, and perhaps yours, the TUs.

Then let them fight it out. Head to head.

Not precluding individual contributions obviously. A level playing field means taking the big guns off it.

I would prefer to see a limit on what the parties can spend so we don’t have to put up with a month of glossy video productions every night for a month before the election. Make the buggers get back on the streets knocking doors.

The phrase has a long and (dis?)honourable reputation.

See here:

http://www.strobes.uklinux.net/why.php

Why Ugandan Discussions?
DISCUSS UGANDA ­ “vb. British. to have sex. A euphemism coined in the 1970s by the British satirical magazine ‘Private Eye.’ It has become one of the magazine’s long-running jokes and is said to stem from a party at which a female journalist was alleged to have explained an upstairs sexual encounter by saying ‘We were discussing Uganda.’ (Idi Amin’s regime was in the news at the time.) The term ‘Uganda Affairs’ is also derived from this source.” From the “Dictionary of Contemporary Slang” by Tony Thorne (Pantheon Books, New York, 1990).

This is one of the more difficult to follow articles on the site so far. I might agree with your argument if it wasn’t written with such convoluted syntax.