Three years ago, in my very first column for this newspaper I had commented on Lawrence Gonzi’s propensity for postponing decisions or action by calling for consensus even when this was not needed, as there was agreement about the issues at hand. Back in 2004 when the local newspapers were publishing photos of the country looking like a tip on a daily basis and anybody who had a scintilla of civic pride was calling for something to be done, the Prime Minister cried for consensus. Instead of getting cracking with laws creating enforcement mechanisms to help stop the littering, Lawrence Gonzi appealed for a political consensus to keep Malta clean. He called upon Alfred Sant to join him in an exercise to have a clean country. I have no idea why the Leader of the Opposition had to enter into the equation at all. There was no need for consensus as there was broad support for anti-littering measures. And whether or not Alfred Sant approved of a clean-up campaign, anti-littering legislation could be enacted without his say-so. The call for consensus was an exercise in superfluity and an attempt to throw the ball into Alfred Sant’s court. The Prime Minister is using the same tactic again – this time with regard to introducing legislation about party financing. During a question and answer session at the PN Club in Rabat, he declared that the Nationalist party would be ready to discuss ways and means of publishing more information on how the party is financed, as long as the other parties agree to do otherwise. Now what was that all about? Why make the enactment of legislation making for greater transparency dependent on another party? Why not go ahead and pass the relevant laws and make sure that all the parties adhere to them? I suspect that it was to put the Opposition on the spot. In any case, the ball was lobbed right back to Lawrence Gonzi as the MLP deputy leaders Charles Mangion and Michael Falzon stated that they agreed with more rules promoting transparency of party funding, incidentally the same rules that Alternattiva Demokrattika have been lobbying in favour of for some years now. Consensus having been reached, we should be presented with legislation in the coming days. Otherwise we can’t really be blamed for thinking the Prime Minister’s Rabat declaration was just pre-election puff. The Labour Party deputy Leader Michael Falzon has stated that he is in favour of the state-funding of political parties. He said, “I see nothing wrong with a public funding system as long it’s transparent. We cannot really avoid the fact that politics today costs money, parties have new, more demanding exigencies and it’s expensive to get your message through”. And so Falzon would have us – the tax-payers – fund his party and the others. I predict that this is one proposal which will not have the PN and MLP at loggerheads but which will not be greeted with jumps of joy by the electorate. Those who are in favour of state-funding claim it is necessary to avoid politicians being “bought” by big donors. Parties would not be reliant on private donors and would consequently not be obliged to give them preferential treatment, the reasoning goes. Public funding would prevent financial scandals such as that where Bernie Ecclestone donated £1 million to the British Labour Party just before the British government announced that Formula One would be exempt from the ban on smoking advertising in sport. Another argument weighing in favour of state-funding of political parties is to the effect that parties are organisations which provide the ideal structure and back-up for citizens to be able to participate in the democratic process, hence it is fitting that they should be the beneficiaries of public funds. Monies from traditional sources such as membership fees and fund-raising activities are not enough to cover the rising costs of the parties’ propaganda machines and electoral campaigns. Those in a nutshell are the arguments in favour of state-funding of political parties. There are a hundred reasons why public funding is a patently bad idea, but I’ll start with a few. In the first place, I deeply resent the idea that the tax-payers are to provide politicians with funding so that they will not be “forced” into doing something illegal – namely allowing themselves to be swayed into giving preferential treatment to fat cat business donors. I know that many people will shrug resignedly and consider it an inevitable aspect of human nature to feel obliged to reciprocate when a gift or donation is made to them. But it’s this kind of resigned attitude which perpetuates our system of patronage. Politicians are not compelled to accept donations or to grant favours or dish out tenders or appoint people onto boards because of those donations. They are not forced to accept bribes – which is really what some of these donations are. I fail to see why we should have to stump up even more of our taxes just to stop them from acting illegally and favouring their private party financiers. It’s completely ludicrous to have to pay politicians to stop them from being bribed. It’s like paying someone to stop him from stealing – it just doesn’t make sense. Another objection to state-funding is that it’s essentially giving politicians a stipend – a big one – to do politics. Which raises the question as to why citizens should have to bank-roll this particular category of people and not any other. Why, for example, should the tax-payer have to bear part of the cost of Joe Saliba’s salary or Michael Falzon’s coffee mornings and not the salary of a nurse or social worker or badly paid doctor instead? What makes political parties so much more deserving of public funds? Oh, I know that public life can be exhausting and stressful, but there are many other careers which are equally stressful, yet those people who choose to pursue them don’t want a state hand-out for having done so. And if parties can’t manage their own financial affairs and ensure that they are not constantly in debt, why should we have to bail them out? Apart from the fact that it does not bode very well for the country to have politicians who can’t balance the books in charge of the country’s cash, I can’t see how having them there sucking up our taxes is going to incentivise them to go out and raise more money. They’ll be the party equivalent of the welfare leeches. If the parties can’t afford huge campaigns and American-style electioneering they should scale down and not expect us to foot the bill or them. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that a cap on the amount that can be spent on election campaigns is a better idea than having to shell out any amount of money for those political parties which I do not support or very much care for.