We will all have to pay the price if we want a 'clean' democracy

It is easy to be cynical about the cry for help issuing from the Labour Party general secretary, David Triesman, esconced as he is in the party's new £5.5m offices. The new HQ in Old Queen Street, a listed terrace overlooking St James's Park just across from the Palace of Westminster, is hardly a shoebox in the middle of the road.

Let us, therefore, be cynical. Mr Triesman would greatly appreciate it if we, the taxpayer, could see our way to clearing the huge overdraft the Labour Party has run up (mostly not while he was in charge, to be fair). He believes it is essential to the health of British democracy that his party should continue to employ almost as many people as it does now, and, as an earnest of his cost-cutting credentials, he has even sent several of them up to Tyneside where the party has set up a back-office operation in rather lower-rent premises.

Tony Blair, meanwhile, says he does not advocate state funding for political parties because it ought to have cross-party support, which is not forthcoming from the Conservatives. So Mr Triesman is either engaged in a softening-up exercise for a shift in policy or is trying to prove that, having moved from Millbank, control-freakery has been left behind.

In fact, the situation is rather more complicated, because there is already state funding for political parties in this country, and it has already been generously increased by Mr Blair's Government. On Labour's side, the bill paid by the taxpayer for political advisers employed by ministers has roughly doubled since 1997. But Mr Blair has been equally generous with his political opponents, increasing the subsidy for political advisers to the official spokespeople for the Conservative, Liberal Democrat and other parties.

Given the dark clouds hanging over the phrase "spin doctor", it is no surprise that Mr Blair resists further increases in that direction. But direct subsidies for political parties are fraught with equally hazardous presentational traps. Why should the public purse pay for hundreds of billboards of Margaret Thatcher's hairdo airbrushed on to William Hague's head?

When Mr Triesman warns that taxpayer funding is essential to a "vibrant democracy", therefore, his plea should be taken with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless, once the salt has been swallowed, he still has a case. There can be no doubt that the series of conflicts of interest, real and apparent, into which the Labour Government has run with its donors has been damaging. The list of highlights is familiar: Ecclestone, Sainsbury, Mittal, PowderJect.

This is despite – or indeed because of – the welcome new laws requiring disclosure. They have not merely been damaging to the Labour Party, but they have been corrosive of democracy itself, helping to deepen suspicion of politics and politicians.

The only solution is to limit donations to, say, £5,000 per donor per year. That would have a dramatic effect on the finances of both Labour and the Tories. While it might be entertaining to see how they would survive on something like a quarter of their current budgets, we voters have to accept that, if we want cleaner politics, we will have to bear some of the price.

A grant paid directly to party headquarters on the basis of a few pence per vote for parties represented in the House of Commons would be a small price to pay for ending the dependence of parties on special interests. As a token of our enthusiasm for a new, non-cynical politics, we congratulate Mr Triesman for saying so.