Sarah Fanet, Fort William and Ardnamurchan
Two articles from The Guardian caught my attention over the summer, one by Daniel Chandler based at the London School of Economics and another one by journalist Peter Geoghegan.
Both authors raised the alarm that big money is now dominating our election campaigns and Geoghegan puts it in strong words that “British political giving is increasingly dominated by the rich’’ and writes that “the next general election will be the most expensive ever, with both main parties relying on funds from ‘high net worth individuals’’’, in other words multimillionaires.
Both authors ask if a state-funded system with vouchers issued to political parties to fund their campaigns could be the answer, a common practice in other European countries.
One describes the UK as an anomaly, and both express the need to find mechanisms to ensure that we do not live in a country in which only the super-rich or candidates who are supported by super rich donors will end up being the winners.
With those two articles in mind, I attended the last Full Council Meeting on October 3.
Item 14 was a paper that proposed a “change to the council’s policy on the display of election posters for all future elections and referenda’’.
It proposed “to no longer permit the fixing of campaign materials on property owned, adopted or maintained by the council.’’
In other words, this was the end of posters on items such as lamp posts in the Highlands during the six week campaign at all future elections (General Elections, Scottish Parliamentary Elections, Council Elections or referenda).
An amendment was proposed by Councillor Kraft, rejecting this proposal which many councillors saw as an attack on democracy, particularly in rural areas where visibility is more difficult.
I was invited to speak and raised concern about the following points:
• The paper stated that the Highlands is a tourist destination and ‘’the campaign signs may be seen by some as unsightly’’. I made the point that the Highlands is not a museum. People live, work and vote in the Highlands and our democracy does not stop with tourism.
• I accepted that campaigns come with a degree of mess generated by materials like posters and I offered to give a list of countries where there is no such mess, no posters, no election and no democracy. The mess that comes after an election when we tidy up, however annoying, is something we should celebrate as it is a reminder that our democracy is alive.
• The posters during the campaign are the opportunity for ALL candidates to make their
names known.
• Most importantly, the regulated six-week period before every election is the moment during which ALL candidates are treated equally with a limit on how much they can spend. This is a highly important mechanism of our democracy that ensures equal exposure to all the candidates. The Highlands has a long tradition of independent councillors who have won elections on small budgets and the campaign is a very valuable time for them to be known. If council properties such as lamp posts are no longer available, only candidates who are fortunate enough to have access to private property will be able to make themselves visible.
The proposal was seen by many members as a threat to democracy and equal opportunity in the Highlands.
I described it as’’ a gift to the super-rich’’ who can afford to ignore the six-week campaign and spend massive sums of money for months, if not years, outside that period and have access to land that they own or that their ‘’chums’’ own to display giant banners.
All that at the expense of candidates who operate on a small budget and can only afford a limited number of posters.
Our country is on a slippery slope as it is letting the super-rich become more and more influential and we must protect our democracy to ensure that anyone who stands at an election gets the chance to be seen, heard and known.
We have a role to play at a local level and at the last Full Council Meeting, councillors clearly rejected this proposal and chose to protect a mechanism that has always aimed to give anyone wishing to become a councillor, an MSP or an MP, whether rich or poor, the chance to be treated equally and known by voters.
Let’s hope that competence will always determine who wins, not money.