[danpalmer]

That is, in the current system. In the UK there are strict limits on campaign spending that get investigated and enforced, and the limits are low enough that individual contributions are important and corporate donations can only go so far.

[laythea]

Erm abuse of this happened recently with no consequences. Please don't speak like the UK is any better. People are all the same.

See https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/16/conservativ...

[emn13]

Just look at the amounts involved however - the UK is orders of magnitude better.

Ignoring differences of degree like that is a sure way to end up in a terrible situation: "it's bad anyhow, who cares if it gets worse?"

[tolien]

To be fair the UK is an order of magnitude smaller and election spending hasn’t reached the stratospheric levels of the USA.

There’s also the example of a number of the pro-Leave campaigns in the EU referendum receiving donations from unknown donors, then all spending it with the same strategic communications company behind Ted Cruz’s primary and Trump’s presidential campaigns [1]. In this cases, the sums involved were of the order of millions of pounds — a bit more significant.

1: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/may/07/the-great...

[danpalmer]

> and election spending hasn’t reached the stratospheric levels of the USA.

This is because election spending in the UK is limited by the Electoral Commission. Also the spending must be published.

[tolien]

Assuming the parties correctly report the spending, or anyone bothers to investigate. I think that is the weak point - if it wasn't for a fairly dogged campaign by Channel 4 the problem with the Tories overspending to promote particular candidates might never have come to light.

For the record, the magic number is £30k per seat contested on "campaign spending" (to promote the national party), and another about £10-16k of "candidate spending" (to promote a particular candidate) depending on the size of the constituency.

https://fullfact.org/law/election-spending-rules-conservativ...

[laythea]

Yep. It does make you wonder what else doesn't get out...

[emn13]

That's not really fair at all; given that accounting for size differences really barely nudges the needle - and grey money is likely a factor in US elections too. I can't find a single very trusted source for US spending, but various links (e.g. https://www.statista.com/statistics/216793/fundraising-and-s...) suggest it's been in the billions for quite some time now.

(Not that I'm suggesting the UK is perfect; simply that there is a nevertheless a huge difference)

[willvarfar]

Well, objectively the UK does seem better.

[danpalmer]

The headline of that article is that the Conservatives have been fined for it. They were investigated, they were punished.

Whether the punishment is enough or not I don't know, maybe, maybe not, but we are better than the US on this, the US does not have any requirements/legislation about it, let alone levy fines on parties for going over them.