Should Election Deposits Be Scrapped?

[ToraToraTora]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30790012
Personally I think not, or we'll end up with every attention seeking numpty cluttering up the hustings.

[Cloverjo]

I agree with you. You do get the odd "Bill's Used Cars Party" - type organisation standing now; it's likely there'll be more of that if they scrap the deposit.

[mikey4444]

I agree TTT. We have enough loony-tunes as it is, without encouraging any more !

http://www.omrlp.com/

[Cloverjo]

I didn't know they were still going, mikey. I'm glad they are, though.

[Gromit]

Here is a sitting on the fence answer.

It should be scrapped at General elections, but retained at by elections.

The problem of long list of daft candidates only occurs at by elections. This is chiefy because they are used by people to buy themselves onto the telly. Most of those are not interested in the political process, they just want their 15 minutes of fame. OK, they can have it, but it will cost them £500.

The wannabes are not really a problem when all constituencies are being contested at the same time. The deposit could be scrapped or negligable then.

[ludwig]

I think it used to be alot less, and they had to put it up to £500 to reduce the numpties to a manageable number, so no I don't think it should be scrapped.

I do like to see them though. There's something brilliant about Lord Buckethead of the looney rainbow alliance standing up there next to David Cameron when the results are read out.

[Cloverjo]

I like that too, ludwig.
I also like the fact that the Monster Raving Loony Party advocated all day pub opening, which seemed a crazy wish at the time, is now commonplace.

[ToraToraTora]

that's nearly true gromit but in the PMs or LOTO seats they know they'll get on telly so there'll be a list as long as your arm if there's no deposit.

[atalanta]

Don't we have a long and rather bizarre history here ? I seem to remember that - sometime last century - the only way for a soldier to get out of the army if he had signed up for a long deal, was for him to stand for parliament. I seem to recall that he only had to put up half-a-crown, and then he was out, provided he went through the business of declaring himself a candidate. This soon became ridiculous, so army and electoral rules were changed.

[ToraToraTora]

Cleverjo, I remember when the MRLP manifesto going back a bit when they said Frank Bruno would be education minister and Nigel Mansell Transport minister! PMSL

[mikey4444]

Here is the Monster Raving Looney's 2010 Election Manifesto :::

http://www.loonyparty.com/history-4/loony-archive/2010-general-election-manifesto/

Point No. 9 is a particular favourite of mine.

[Old_Geezer]

Just £500, and returned if they're a valid enough candidate to get a mere 5% of the vote ?

That seems reasonable to me. It'd be nice not to have such a hurdle but one can not open the floodgates to ridiculous numbers of candidates with no chance of getting elected who just want publicity, and who clutter up the voting form and confuse the issue.

Maybe if independent hopefuls campaigned and got feedback on how popular they were before officially throwing their hat into the ring, it'd help.

[Old_Geezer]

Every constituency should have an Official Raving Loony candidate to collect the, "The rest of you are unelectable", vote.

[ToraToraTora]

point 6 is my favourite mikey! create a ECHL inspired!

[mikey4444]

LOL TTT !