Regulating campaign donations just won't work

This morning's Times carried the news that Labour backbenchers are resisting a cap on union donations. I am not sure why they are so bothered.

If individual donations are capped, those with sufficient motivation will simply find ways round the law. Either they will find other people to donate with them or they will set up supportive partisan organisations that are not subject to the rules. Unions are in a far stronger position to do these things than Blairite business donors.

So the cap being canvassed by Sir Hayden Phillips is likely to strengthen the union link.

The only way to make political parties finance themselves honestly is for the electorate to punish transgressions when they get to the polling booths.

In the 1980s, voters turned against Labour because their union finance had corrupted their policy so Labour began to change. In the 1990s, the Tories were punished for sleaze and began, very slowly, to change. In this decade, all the parties are being punished for the dodgy relationship between the honours system and money, and this too will change under poltical pressure.

Regulation won't work.