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I know that the Independent along with most papers in ‘Fleet Street’ is suffering financial problems since the “paid for by advertising” business model they all relied upon collapsed and to be honest, is not likely to return in the future but, that is no excuse to continue being stupid.

Although it is really a bit of a dead duck, in their main editorial today, Sunday, they return to the Lord Ashcroft story again. The last time they did this, some 90% of the people who wrote in dismissed the story as just Labour Party election campaigning and so on.

Damning with Faint Praise

Is the phrase that comes to mind when looking at their editorial. I may be just getting more fussy as I get older but regardless of the ‘political message’, I really do hate having my intellect insulted by have baked people who clearly aren’t up to their own job: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-what-are-you-afraid-of-dave-1917417.html

My Response to Them

This is yet another poor editorial and the problem is that the Independent is miffed because the “Ashcroft Saga” just won’t catch fire as the “MPs Expenses” story did for the Telegraph. I would be more impressed with this newspaper if we had seen equal attention paid to Lord Paul, a non-dom Labour Peer who is also a member of the Privy Council but – all we hear is the sound of silence and I wonder why ?

Could it be that Ashcroft by using his business sense and nous has directed Tory efforts to some 100 marginals and is therefore seen as a threat to Labour and the LibDems whereas Lord Paul has been too busy filing his expenses ?

If you want to be seen as Independent, then act independently in your coverage would be my advice, if you want to back Brown and Labour then come out, say so and make the case for your decision but do please stop the mealy mouthed sniping at Cameron whilst pretending to be neutral.

The Real Issue

Of course if you want to be investigative journalists, you might want to turn your attention to the underlying issue which is about two things, Political Party Funding plus, the public insisting on voting for “Party Brands” rather than their individual MP based on the merit of that candidate to represent local issues at the national level.

It is this latter issue that lies at the heart of the matter because if the British public were prepared to vote for the individual and independent as in truly independent (unlike this newspaper it appears), candidates, there would be no place in the political space for the Lords Ashcroft, Paul or Trade Unions when it comes to campaign funding.

Unfortunately in this matter as in the MPs Expenses Scandal, whilst newspapers and people are prepared to shout and scream about it all, they are not prepared to accept that it is their behaviour that has bought the current situation about. As the plight of the LibDems demonstrates all too clearly, after two years of the most unpopular Labour Government of all time, the LibDems have failed to overtake Labour in the Polls, consigning them to third place and regaining the “Crown of the Radical Party” which they lost to Labour over 100 years ago.

The public just isn’t listening to them, they like the two party system and FPTP. That the Tory lead has narrowed is no surprise (Matthew Parris wrote a very good piece on that in Saturday’s Times), but it is amazing that Labour after their disastrous mismanagement of just about everything and especially the economy, are even in with a shout. If we have a Hung Parliament, Sterling will collapse and we will be faced with plus 20 years as a third world economy. Whoever wins, Labour or Conservatives, they will have to institute savage cuts in public spending to avoid a Sterling collapse, there will be no soft landing and if Labour won, expect a putsch with Brown replaced in weeks rather than months.

The British Media is Crap

Forget the “chattering classes”, most journalists are poorly paid and left wing by nature, the real question is just how sophisticated is the British Electorate ? From Thatcher onwards, Prime Ministers were too frightened to pay MPs properly and openly (which they should have done), instead a system of back door subsides and nod and a wink expenses arose that was always going to look wrong whenever it came to light.

Although the various “Torrid of Tunbridge Wells” found it all totally disgraceful, I found it at its funniest over the Duck House and Moat cleaning, its worse over Jacqui Smith’s behaviour but entirely down to our fault as the public for not facing up to the issue in the first place. The sensible solution was always obvious from Day One, calculate their real costs (per MP), and pay it to them gross on a self employed basis, let the Inland Revenue ‘police’ their expenses and deductions the same as for the rest of us.

The point is that with regard to the current situation of party funding, no one is doing anything illegal even in the case of the LibDems a few years back in accepting donations from a conman who stole the money in the first place ! As stated above, we the public can sort this by simply voting for independents and avoiding the Party Tickets. If we insist on voting for “Branded Parties” then the “Great and the Good” will sit down and write up a whole set of rules governing party funding and in 10 years time we will be back where we are today.

As journalists, you should not be writing nonsense like this editorial, you should be looking at the underlying issues not spouting off like some brainless adolescent full of opinions devoid of supporting facts.