Former Labour minister Bill Rammell says the state funding of political parties could be the way to end the issue of donors being given political appointments.
Speaking on GB News Bill Rammell said: “The scale of sleaze and corruption [under the Conservatives] was way, way beyond what we’re looking at here.
“Let’s deal with the appointments. It is permissible within the ministerial rules to appoint people to posts without open competition for a limited period of time, up to two years. It helps any government drive their political agenda.
“The hypocrisy from the Tories knows no bounds. There were 400 such appointments between 2022 and 2023. David Cameron, in 2010, immediately appointed ten Tory advisors to civil service posts.
“What the government needs to do is to own this, be upfront about what it’s doing, why it’s making the appointments, and explain them very clearly.
“[The Lord Alli pass] is more challenging in terms of perception, if not substance.
“He hasn’t got a security pass now, as I understand it but the government needs to explain, very quickly, why he got the pass.
“The rules explicitly allow governments to appoint people without open competitions to drive a political agenda.
“This happens in terms of funding from very wealthy people under all parties. I’ve actually got a solution to it. It is that we move to the public funding the political parties and don’t make parties reliant on donors.
“We have public funding of political parties through the short money. [The Conservative Party] is now being substantially funded through taxpayers money, through the short money, so it’s not something that is dramatically new.”
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