party funding

There has been much controversy recently about the role that the trade unions play in the operation and funding of the Labour party.

This has been sparked by the row over events in the Falkirk constituency with Unite being accused of paying the Labour party membership fees for some of its members. There have even been accusations of people being signed up without their consent. The latter, of course, is, if true, indefensible. And Len McClusky is reported (Guardian, 18/7/13) as regretting the former.

Surely more state funding of political parties as is common in mainland Europe would be better, although the PR aspects of such a policy don't look too good at the moment! And more state money in order to produce even more fatuous party political broadcasts would look bad too.

But hey! Let's get some balance in this debate. Let's consider the, usually unremarked on, donation of funds to, usually, the Conservative Party by public companies. These companies are owned by members of the public, directly as shareholders, or indirectly via their pension funds. The latter get absolutely no say on some of their income being diverted to the Tories. And even share holders can only tick, or not, a box regarding political donations. A contrary vote does not allow individual opt-out (as with some Labour Party donations from trade unions) and the totality of vote is only advisory.

So let's demand an end to individual political donations in excess of, say, £1000, and a complete end to donations from public companies and trade unions! We're told that austerity is good for organisations so let's put the two big parties on a diet too!

Roger Oliver (19/7/13)

Fracking, shale gas and climate change

There's been an interesting exchange of emails in the Guardian recently regarding climate change, shale gas and fracking.

July 2, 2013 had several letters for and against this source of energy for the UK. David England stated that methane is 200% as effective as a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide and that therefore methane leakage of shale gas reduces its low-carbon credentials. He mentions concerns in the US that as much as 16% of methane may be lost in fracking operations.

On July 3 David Hookes corrects England's figure of 200% to 2000% and quotes a figure from a study at Cornell University that suggests a leakage of only 5% would cancel out the apparent gain from using shale gas rather than coal.

On July 5 Peter Hansen confirms Hookes's figure (well; he quotes methane being 21 times worse than carbon dioxide which is 2100%  but let's  not quibble), and suggests that with 16% leakage of methane this fuel would cause over 50% more greenhouse warming than using coal.

So Hookes and Hansen are, roughly speaking, in agreement and the claim that using methane extracted by fracking as a fuel helps mitigate climate change looks pretty dubious.

Roger Oliver (8/7/13)