I am loath to do anything that restricts political freedom of speech. The reality is, though, that the media have a disproportionate effect and some deliberately exploit their newspapers and television stations to serve their political intent with the effect of making political parties overly cautious about ‘what the papers say’ and, yes, I am thinking about Rupert Murdoch here.

I fear that your comment about deregulating TV advertising is hopelessly optimistic. For one, people don’t pay much attention to TV ads. Secondly, they’re expensive and would put parties even more in hock to single donors. Thirdly, the quality of political advertising just about everywhere is woeful, mostly because a thirty-second slot does not allow you to engage with the issues in any meaningful way and, in any case, are better suited to setting out your policy platform rather than the politics and reasoning behind it.

Equally, they only work for national or regional elections. For local elections, they cover too large an area. My belief is that political engagement starts with people knocking on the door, not a TV ad.

You’re absolutely right on your first point about the Labour Party, though.

xD.

I take your owrires on the “money is speech” argument however the fact is the media is run by well of people- and a much smaller group of people than those who can give donations - and htose who have a lot of infleu are probaly fewer and more priviledged than those with a lot of money- shutting off the possiblity off debate in this way strikes me as a bad idea.

They should deregulate tv advertisng- so the parties can get their message out more and rely less on journalists and spin.

as far as I can say the argumetns for cappying donations while weak are stronger than expenditure

xD.