Selling honours is the best way for political parties to raise money, argues richard ehrman
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The newspaper proprietor Lord Northcliffe once declared, "when I want a peerage, I shall buy it like an honest man." Tony Blair and Lord Levy, the mysterious fixer at the centre of the current loans for peerages allegations, would wince at such bluntness. But Northcliffe's crack rings just as true today as it did in the 1920s.
On only one occasion has the law banning the sale of titles been invoked. In 1933, Lloyd George's notorious honours broker, Maundy Gregory, got two months for trying to peddle a knighthood for £10,000 to a naval officer who did not want it. Gregory worked for the Conservatives as well as the Liberals, and even the occasional Labour figure.
Honours broking has always been a classy racket, but can it ever be justified? Lloyd George thought so, but only in private. "You and I know that the sale of honours is the
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| We don’t want taxpayers to fund parties – which is why big donors get peerages |
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cleanest way of raising money for a political party," he once told the influential Tory, JCC Davidson. "The worst of it is that you cannot defend it in public." Awkward though it may be, perhaps the old goat had a point.
Even if they get funding from the taxpayer, political parties all over the world still have to raise money from private donors. In Europe they take kickbacks from contractors given, say, major construction projects. In America, corrupt political funding is endemic. In Japan, politicians rely on the mafia for money.
Here, we do not want the tax payer to fund parties, and small donations will never be enough, so big donors get peerages. Compared with the alternatives, it seems almost quaint.
Of course, if any money from the latest scam has not gone to the Labour party, and the treasurer says he knows nothing of it, that will be rather more serious. We might even see a second prosecution, which really would be fun. 
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