I feel a bit sorry for Peter Hain.
I never thought I would write that – but I’ve just completed my various nomination forms to stand, and have read the guidance notes for candidates.
The section on election expenses and donations is over 20 pages. It does at least recognise that the legislation is complicated. As are the expense forms, which have to be completed within 35 days of the election result. I can see they are trying to prevent people buying votes and elections and creating transparency about where political funding is coming from – but anything which is this complex is clearly ripe both for careful abuse and accidental error. I did find it hard to see how senior politicians could forget the odd £100,000 or so coming into their campaign. But now I see it’s not that surprising given the form-filling and the legalistic approach. The focus is on mechanics not principle.
The good news is that I don’t think anyone is going to give me a donation (and, actually, if they did it’s clearly more trouble than it’s worth so I wouldn’t accept it).
As regards expenses, each candidate is allowed to spend £600 + 5p per voter – that’s about £800 for me. I can’t spend it on something useful like buying people a drink: that’s expressly forbidden, although it exposes me to verbal abuse when it would otherwise be my round.
I never thought I would write that – but I’ve just completed my various nomination forms to stand, and have read the guidance notes for candidates.
The section on election expenses and donations is over 20 pages. It does at least recognise that the legislation is complicated. As are the expense forms, which have to be completed within 35 days of the election result. I can see they are trying to prevent people buying votes and elections and creating transparency about where political funding is coming from – but anything which is this complex is clearly ripe both for careful abuse and accidental error. I did find it hard to see how senior politicians could forget the odd £100,000 or so coming into their campaign. But now I see it’s not that surprising given the form-filling and the legalistic approach. The focus is on mechanics not principle.
The good news is that I don’t think anyone is going to give me a donation (and, actually, if they did it’s clearly more trouble than it’s worth so I wouldn’t accept it).
As regards expenses, each candidate is allowed to spend £600 + 5p per voter – that’s about £800 for me. I can’t spend it on something useful like buying people a drink: that’s expressly forbidden, although it exposes me to verbal abuse when it would otherwise be my round.
I will report at the end what my costs were. In practice, I think most will be the cost of printing leaflets only a select few will read. So far it’s $10, being the cost of the address of this web site. I hope you think it’s worth it.
1 comment:
When I get the leaflet, I'll let you know!
CJ xx
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