Can it be as far back as ao October 1994 when The Guarcash-for-questions affair" was a political scandal of the 1990s in the United Kingdom.y lobbyist,Ian Greer of Ian Greer Associates, had bribed two Conservative Members of Parliament to ask parliamentary questions and perform other tasks on behalf of the Egyptian owner of Harrods department store, Mohamed Al-Fayed.
TIt would be folowed up by Cash-for-Honours scandal (also known as Cash for Peerages, Loans for Lordships, Loans for Honours or Loans for Peerages) was a political scandal in the United Kingdom in 2006 and 2007 concerning the connection between political donations and the award of life peerages. A loophole in electoral law in the United Kingdom means that although anyone donating even small sums of money to a political party has to declare this as a matter of public record, those loaning money at commercial rates of interest did not have to make a public declaration.
In March 2006, several men nominated for life peerages by then Prime Minister Tony Blair[1] were rejected by the House of Lords Appointments Commission. It was later revealed they had loaned large amounts of money to the governing Labour Party,
You would have thought that by now the UK Parliament, would have sought to end such flagrant breaches of the democratic process where even where it is apparently not illegal if you have money you canh still seem to have influence by donating to a Political Party.
Nation Cymru recently reported that
More than half of donations received by new Conservative MPs in Wales came from secretive fundraising clubs based in the south-east of England.
Six of the nine new Conservative MPs elected in Wales received a combined 15 donations totalling £53,750, according to the new register of MPs’ interests.
The source for 55% of that sum (£29,750) was a network of clubs and funds used by the Conservative party to allow rich supporters to donate money anonymously which is usually targeted at candidates in marginal seats.
The funding is legal but transparency campaigners have called for a change to the rules so that the origins of political donations are revealed.
The Nation have also reported that
Alun Cairns set up a Westminster interest group for energy security months after receiving a donation from an energy company at the heart of a row about lobbying by another Conservative MP.
Last June, the Vale of Glamorgan MP registered a £5,000 donation to his general election campaign fund from Aquind Ltd, a company with plans to build an electricity interconnector between England and France.
The company’s director, Alexander Temerko, has donated more than £1 million to the Tories.
After winning re-election, Cairns established the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for energy security.
He is listed as the “chair and registered contact” for the group which held its first meeting in February this year, the UK Parliament register of APPG’s shows.
The purpose of the group is to “promote the security of energy supply in the UK”.
Temerko is described on his personal website as a “vocal champion of UK energy security and independence”, while Aquind’s website states that its interconnector is needed to “ensure additional security and diversity of energy supply.”
The funding from Aquind is completely legal. However, Cairns’ formation of the group could raise questions after fellow Conservative MP David Morris was ordered to apologise by Parliament’s standards watchdog for breaching rules on donations tied to the same company.
Morris had accepted a donation of £10,000 from Aquind last September. A month later he used Business Questions in the Commons to call on the UK government to urge energy regulator Ofgem to “protect British companies by granting regulation as soon as possible” for Aquind’s project.
He followed up his request the next day with an email to the UK Business Secretary.
Westminster’s standards commissioner found his actions broke paragraph 12 of the code of conduct for MPs which states: “No Member shall act as a paid advocate in any proceeding of the House.”
Jane Dodds, leader of the Welsh Lib Dems, told Nation.Cymru that it was important to ensure that the activities of Alun Cairns’ cross-party group were transparent.
“Discussing energy security is a very noble cause, however it would be interesting to know what the precise aims and objectives of this group are,” she said.
“Alun Cairns and other members of this group need to ensure that the group’s activities are clear and fully transparent.”
I don't live in a marginal seat so probably do not see the sort of campaigning in marginal seats but Political parties' spend is capped at £30,000 for each constituency that it contests in a general election and one wonders how many through some creative accounting keep withi the limit and if we had a effective election commission and Conservative proposals to abolish or significantly revamp the Electoral Commission is hardly going to give it electoral teeth.
One thing that would be useful if Wikipedia copied the same system of constituency results in Canada where often you can see how much each party spent in each riding 9Consituency)
| 2019 Canadian federal election | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Expenditures | |||
| Conservative | Philip Lawrence | 27,385 | 39.7 | +0.14 | $68,864.16 | |||
| Liberal | Kim Rudd | 24,977 | 36.2 | -6.31 | $83,715.67 | |||
| New Democratic | Mallory MacDonald | 9,615 | 13.9 | -0.9 | $8,871.55 | |||
| Green | Jeff Wheeldon | 5,524 | 8.0 | +4.87 | none listed | |||
| People's | Frank Vaughan | 1,460 | 2.1 | – | $1,643.34 | |||
| Total valid votes/Expense limit | 68,961 | 100.0 | ||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 484 | |||||||
| Turnout | 69,445 | 71.7 | ||||||
| Eligible voters | 96,841 | |||||||
| Conservative gain from Liberal | Swing | +3.23 | ||||||
| 2019 Canadian federal election | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Expenditures | |||
| Conservative | Dan Albas | 31,135 | 47.9 | +8.34 | $45,571.84 | |||
| Liberal | Mary Ann Murphy | 16,252 | 25.0 | -12.21 | $46,808.57 | |||
| New Democratic | Joan Phillip | 10,904 | 16.8 | -2.50 | $29,000.61 | |||
| Green | Robert Mellalieu | 5,086 | 7.8 | +3.87 | none listed | |||
| People's | Allan Duncan | 1,345 | 2.1 | - | none listed | |||
| Libertarian | Jesse Regier | 213 | 0.3 | - | none listed | |||
| Total valid votes/Expense limit | 64,935 | 100.0 | ||||||
| Total rejected ballots | 341 | |||||||
| Turnout | 65,276 | 69.2 | ||||||
| Eligible voters | ||||||||
Not all are listed but you can get some idea see more here.
| 2019 Canadian federal election | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | Expenditures | |||
| New Democratic | Laurel Collins | 23,765 | 33.2% | -9.1 | ||||
| Green | Racelle Kooy | 21,383 | 29.9% | -3.0 | $78,891.28 | |||
| Liberal | Nikki Macdonald | 15,952 | 22.3% | +10.5 | ||||
| Conservative | Richard Caron | 9,038 | 12.6% | +0.8 | ||||
| People's | Alyson Culbert | 920 | 1.3% | - | $5,286.41 | |||
| Animal Protection | Jordan Reichert | 221 | 0.3% | 0.0 | ||||
| Communist | Robert Duncan | 113 | 0.2% | - | ||||
| Independent | David Shebib | 111 | 0.2% | - | ||||
| VCP | Keith Rosenberg | 46 | 0.1% | - | ||||
| Total valid votes/Expense limit | 71,549 | 99.3% | $121,316.37 | |||||
| Total rejected ballots | 475 | 0.7% | ||||||
| Turnout | 72,024 | 76.1% | ||||||
| Eligible voters | 94,627 | |||||||
| New Democratic hold | Swing | |||||||
| Source: Elections Canada[3][4] | ||||||||
Whether such a easy system would help us to see any correlation between , the amount spent on seat and the outcome.
Of course we also need forensic examination of the Parties overall spending and donations, but the current system stinks and in the sixteen years since 2Cash for Questions" scandal it has hardly improved.
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