Dale is Again Wrong: Gift Aid Would Be Equivalent to Match Funding

Iain Dale is utterly against public funding for our politics. LoL tend to agree with him on that for the time being.

But Iain is seemingly calling for gift aid to be extended to political donations. This gives an extra 28% for standard rate tax payers and as much as 66.66% for those on top whack.

This is the same as match funding. This cash doesn't come from nowhere. It's from the Treasury. Our money.

I fear that Iain is carelessly blurring the boundaries between political parties and charities here. Tory bloggers - particularly Fawkes and Dale - have been ripping into The Smith Institute think tank as they say it is too political to be a charity. But Dale is a Trustee of Policy Exchange which is rather similar and reportedly 100% Tory.

He has set his cap against public funding for politics including match funding. But extending Gift Aid to Political Parties is NOTHING BUT public match funding.

Someone draw him a diagram! Once again some of the comment posts on this have disappeared into the ether.