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Challenge on Tory funding
SOME of what Jeff Whitaker says (Advertiser 25 June) about how MPs run their private offices makes sense. But I can't agree with his assertion that MPs should never employ their spouses or partners. And there is a link between family businesses and MPs' offices: very few staff would really be prepared to work the long, irregular and unsocial hours that the job demands.
But let's move on to the Big Issues:
1. Electoral reform – universal suffrage and our version of democracy is less than a century old but it needs refreshing with some form of proportional representation. The old two-party system no longer reflects what most people want in the 21st Century.
2. Party funding – we need much tighter rules to prevent all parties being 'bought' by shadowy figures from tax havens. The Tories' Lord Ashcroft is the worst offender. He's a man who refuses to say where he lives for tax purposes – but he's big in Belize.
He should never have been enobled. Buying influence is for banana republics, not Western democracies. Ashcroft is funding many marginal seats that the Tories hope to win.
So, will the Tories' Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for High Peak, Andrew Bingham, say categorically whether or not he is using the noble lord's Monopoly money to fund his campaign?
Alistair Macdonald
Whaley Lane
Whaley Bridge
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Weather for Buxton
Thursday 24 May 2012
Today
Sunny spells
Temperature: 11 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: North east
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 16 mph
Wind direction: East
