One of Hayden Phillips' recommendations will no doubt be some form of increase in state funding. Malcolm (half way down) tried to raise the problem with basing such funding on the current disproportional and unrepresentative party vote shares over on Guido yesterday, although given the nosedive in intellect, wit and personality that site has seen recently i'm not surprised his point was lost amidst the self-congratulatory flatulance of its blazer and chino's set.

To re-iterate, as I mentioned on Tuesday FPTP forces supposedly "rational" (i.e. short-termist and self-deceivingly instrumental) tactical voting, which distorts the true picture of party support within the electorate. Its bad enough that current state funding of parties, in the form of Short money, is already allocated on such a basis. But any future increase in cash on this basis would be a huge injustice to those smaller parties whose supporters are forced to defect at the ballot box, and to the legions of disenfranchised voters who are stuck with voting for the "least worst option", or not at all, instead of being able to make a positive contribution to democracy.

On another track, a party funding idea i'm pretty enamoured with, but can't remember the name of, and don't know if anyone uses (if anyone does then let me know), is a system whereby the voter, as well as indicating their support for a candidate (under any system), also "votes" for a party or candidate that they wish to allocate a pre-determined amount of state cash to. This allows you to vote for one party, but also support another (perhaps smaller/more ideological party) with a small grant of cash, say £3. This allows the voter to take both instrumental and expressive considerations into account.

If we are to move towards greater state funding of parties (whatever the positives and negatives), I can't think of a more democratic and fool-proof way of apportionaing the dosh. And it could save many independents and new parties the cost of a deposit, thereby helping to reduce the current undemocratic wealth-tax imposed on those wishing to stand for office.