We like to suppose that Britain is a paragon of democracy – it’s not

This week, one rich punter paid £120,000 for the privilege of dinner with the prime minister and his two predecessors, David Cameron and Theresa May.

Cue much larking around, as the idea of these three dining together without bread rolls being deliberately thrown and the wine being chucked, beggars belief. There’s no love lost between any of the former Tory leaders.

Still, it was dressed up as harmless fun, a piece of entertainment, at the Conservative Party’s summer party held at London’s Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum. Along with the meal from hell, an African safari trip went for £65,000, a shooting weekend for £37,000 and Chelsea vs Arsenal tickets for £5,000.

A band sang Abba songs and the guests dined on salmon tartare, beef with asparagus mash and passion fruit meringues. As unempathetic spectacles go, the evening was right up there – a shameless parade of senior Tory politicians, including Boris Johnson and members of the cabinet and assorted hangers-on. They were joined by wealthy supporters prepared to bid in the jolly auction or buy the various prize draw tickets on sale.

The event was about networking and impressing, acquiring an opportunity to mingle and schmooze with the powerful and well-connected, something that is denied to those without money. It was aimed at “regular donors” and the tables cost £20,000 each.

In effect, it seems the lots were meaningless. Those paying to attend might as well have stuffed the cash in brown envelopes and handed it over directly, without going through the charade of buying an item. We know this, because doubts were duly raised over whether the dinner with Mr Johnson, Mr Cameron and Ms May would ever take place. After all, Mr Johnson was instrumental in orchestrating Ms May’s downfall and she has been venomous towards him since, and it was Mr Johnson’s defeat of Mr Cameron in the bruising EU referendum campaign that forced the latter’s resignation.

One guest was quoted as saying: “I suspect it’s the kind of thing CCHQ [Conservative Campaign Headquarters] auctions off but never actually happens.”

The three of them sitting happily round a table with a donor who has paid £120,000 smackers for the privilege, is a fantasy, a chimera like so much of the V&A bash. It seems to me it’s not about buying things at all but about buying access. Again, it raises the question as to why we tolerate this deceit, why we don’t end this grubby spectacle once and for all, and bring in state funding of political parties?

It affirmed, once more, the sense of two nations: one able to influence and get their way: the other, not. Outside, museum workers picketed the entrance, protesting against their pay and conditions; elsewhere, in the wider world, people were also struggling with the rising cost of living. Inside, they danced and whooped and hollered without any financial cares at all.

Such occasions are not confined to the Tories. To deny the other parties do not woo the well-heeled is nonsense. Labour holds gala dinners, at which every table is guaranteed the presence of a member from the frontbench team. The leader attends and does the rounds, meeting and greeting those who have paid substantial sums to be there. The Liberal Democrats also rely on fundraisers, with senior members of the party guaranteed to be in attendance.

The Tories just do it bigger and glitzier. But then they have to – unlike Labour, in particular, they cannot fall back on union funding. So, while Mr Johnson and his colleagues were seeking their donors’ cash, 25 Labour MPs were preparing to join the following day’s picket lines of the RMT rail union. The MPs would say they shared the same left-wing ideology as the strikers, but the feeling persists that the monetary link helps. It would be instructive to see the strength of the MPs’ backing if the cash was taken away, if the party was not so dependent on the unions.

Make no mistake, too, the unions are also purchasing an audience, a direct line to the top, again the same as the attendees at the Tory extravaganza. If the union chiefs want to see a senior Labour figure, to press their case, they get to see them. If they wish to make their views known to those who matter, they do. Policy proposals are modified to reflect their interests. It’s that simple, and that transactional.

Surely, it is time this relationship between money and influence ended. For too long, our politics has been blighted with scandals concerning favours and patronage. “Sleaze” is a constant, a recurring theme that only serves to damage our faith in Westminster, in those who lead us.

We like to suppose that Britain is a paragon of democracy, that our political system is open and honest. It is nothing of the sort, as this week vividly illustrates.

The argument that says we do not require state funding, that the last thing we need is for the taxpayer to foot another bill, this one for our main political parties, is weak. We’re not talking about a huge amount to enable them to function – it’s tiny, compared to the overall public expenditure budget.

In return, we would receive a cleaner, healthier, more equal politics, and end this shameful farce once and for all.