some of the criticism of political expenditure has been directed as much against the goods and services purchased as against the amounts involved . many leading members of the labour party dislike , distrust , and sometimes fail to understand , the world of public relations . in the words of Mr Gaitskell , there are many in the party who feel insulted and humiliated that their desires and wants are being dictated to them regardless of how real they are , or how genuine are the advertisers &apos; claims . they feel the whole thing is somehow false . Alice Bacon , chairman of the NEC &apos;s publicity and political education sub-committee , has denounced the conservative party &apos;s public relations efforts for having introduced something which is alien to our British democracy . the conservatives are charged with selling political ideas as if they were detergents . distaste and disgust are strong emotions , but negative ones . the labour party has been singularly lacking in suggestions about what might be done to prevent the conservatives from subverting or Americanizing the British electorate by public relations techniques . a small minority of labour party members would probably support a drastic curtailment of advertising by government action , and accept the implications of this for the press as well as for politics . regulation of advertising which did not control it virtually outright would not seriously affect political expenditure . if a law could be drafted to prevent politically relevant advertising , one could also be drafted to prevent the expenditure in the first place . parties , if not all their associates , could be prohibited from purchasing advertising space in newspapers and on the hoardings . if instead the conservatives put more money into colour comics like form , the level of debate would hardly have been raised . much spending to which objections are made - for instance , the Colin Hurry poll , aims of industry press releases , the economic league &apos;s factory gate speakers - does not take the form of purchasing space ; only &amp;pound;445,000 of the &amp;pound;1,435,000 credited to business groups in the Nuffield study was spent on buying advertising space . efforts to control the content rather than the volume of advertising are foredoomed to failure . it would be virtually impossible to discriminate in a statute between political advertising which does or does not lower the tone of debate . a promise to increase pensions appears as altruism to some ; to others it seems rank bribery . an advertising council might be created along the lines of the press council , to scrutinize advertising and censure offenders ; given the model suggested , little could be expected from such a body . it would be as difficult for a quasi-judicial tribunal to pass upon the content of political advertisements , rejecting those that were unsuitable , as for the Speaker of the House of Commons to do similarly in parliamentary debates . it might not be particularly difficult to attack the advertiser &apos;s practice of using market research methods to study the wants of the electorate . a law could prohibit pollsters from asking questions on political topics . but this would not affect the substantive problem , which arises from the fear that some politicians frame or revise policies simply to win more votes , without regard to the national welfare . 3 . all the proposed alterations discussed so far have been restrictive ones , intended to remedy deficiencies in the representation of the people act by reducing the amount of money spent on electioneering in the long run . but the act might also be altered in such a way as to increase the scope for political expenditure . the foregoing analysis indicates that restrictive amendments to the present act are not likely to remedy the alleged evils . the American experience of fifty years of attempted regulation would confirm this judgment . V O Key reports : legislation purports to require publicity of campaign finance , to limit the amounts spent , to prohibit certain types of contributions to campaigns , and to limit the size of contributions . in general , the laws do not in fact limit expenditures , substantially affect the size of contributions , or assure full publicity . if means could be found to level up the resources of labour and the liberals , much of the bitterness might be removed from present discussion of election laws , and the practical consequences of major shortcomings of those laws would be greatly reduced . one remedy lies within the hands of the labour and liberal parties - it is to collect higher dues from members , a far easier task than greatly expanding present membership . in the words of Morgan Phillips , labour party income is still geared to a different and far less expensive political era . as long as five-sixths of the party &apos;s members contribute three farthings a month ( 9 d a year ) to Transport House , labour leaders can hardly plead that their relative financial weakness is solely the fault of the conservatives . if dues for trade union affiliated members were raised to 1 s a year , Transport House would have an additional &amp;pound;70,000 to spend annually . if trade union members paid the party 2 s a year , as Phillips has suggested , the income of Transport House would be doubled . since the labour party proclaims a desire to narrow income differentials , it might consider the membership scheme of the German social democratic party ; it is a sliding scale , with contributions graded according to income . nearly 600,000 German socialists gave the party more than &amp;pound;1 apiece on average ( &amp;pound;720,000 ) in 1957 ; dues for those in the highest income bracket were set at &amp;pound;50 a year . the liberal party is appealing for mass-membership contributions . the appeal leaflet , this is your party , estimates minimum annual needs at &amp;pound;172,000 . another method of increasing party revenue would be to have the state make statutory contributions to the parties . at present the law penalizes the candidates who secure less than one-eighth of the vote at parliamentary elections . the law could equally give cash bonuses to the candidates who save their deposits . grants are made to candidates in some foreign countries . the actual amount given might be determined in one of several ways . it could be equal to the sum of money spent in each constituency , or equal to the legally permitted maxima . alternatively , it might be a lump sum of &amp;pound;500 or &amp;pound;1,000 . the grant could be paid after each election or annually . ( a guarantee of campaign expenses would not only save parties this sum , but would also free them from the need to keep a sizeable cash reserve against the possibility of having to fight two elections in quick succession . ) a grant paid on the basis of sums spent by candidates in campaigning in 1959 would have brought the conservatives &amp;pound;475,000 , labour &amp;pound;435,000 , and the liberals approximately &amp;pound;90,000 . it would be prudent to make such grants to candidates , in order to avoid the difficulty of defining a party , and the possibility of placing the Treasury in a position of having to arbitrate between two factions both claiming one grant . the sums of money involved would be small by exchequer standards , but considerable in political terms ; the poorest party , the liberals , would be aided most in proportion , the richest one , relatively least . the labour party &apos;s dependence upon trade unions for finance could thereby be appreciably reduced . another way of remedying deficiencies , which would also lead to greater expenditure , would be to abolish the present restrictions on spending by candidates . the economist suggested this in a post-election editorial of 10 October 1959 , as a means of preventing the law from being brought into disrepute . liberals , who depend more upon personal appeal and constituency efforts than do others , might gain most from such a step . 4 . most advocates of stricter accounting of political expenditure assume that money buys votes ; some charge that it buys votes in sufficient quantities to win elections . this assertion is truest when it is most platitudinous : a party can not operate without money . to go further , and say that a party such as the liberals gains few votes because it has little money is to mistake cause and effect . it would be more nearly true to say that a party with relatively few voters , such as the liberals , has difficulty in raising money . as the rise of the labour party shows , the necessary minimum is not great , nor is it impossible to secure if the party has strong support in the electorate . many British discussions of political expenditure seem to assume a simple input-output model of electioneering : x thousand pounds will produce x or x/2 or x/4 or 2x or 4x votes . y inches of advertising space will produce y/2 or 2y units of political influence . ( how much of a reduction factor is needed for the 100,000,000 or so leaflets distributed by the economic league between elections has never been specified . ) people unaccustomed to dealing with large sums of money might think it incredible that hundreds of thousands of pounds might be spent to no real effect . socialists are further handicapped in viewing the problem if they believe that capitalists are not only wicked but also devilishly clever . the determinants of voting behaviour and election results are so infinitely complex that we can rarely separate out any single factor and assign to it a specific amount of influence . since the introduction of the secret ballot , it has been impossible to establish a straightforward cause and effect relationship between expenditure and voting . we can only examine what we know about elections and about how money is spent , then make judgments based upon selective empirical data and logical analysis . elections are determined by three interrelated factors - the material and social environment , individual values , and party activities . the influence of an individual party upon a given election result is a limited one ; therefore , the value of party spending is likewise limited . there is a ceiling ( and quite possibly a diminishing margin of utility ) for political expenditure . the Gallup poll &apos;s graph of the party standings in its monthly polls since 1945 suggests that the single most important influence upon voting behaviour is the economic state of the nation . this is little affected by the few hundred thousand pounds that the parties spend . long-term environmental changes , important in setting the limits within which parties may manoeuvre , are also outside the control of party treasurers . this explains why the richest party does not always win elections in Britain or America . the successes of the labour party at the polls , particularly in the 1920&apos;s , are good evidence of this . money can not purchase a large political following , although it can purchase attention . Lloyd George &apos;s fund could underwrite constituency expenses , but it could not ensure the delivery of safe seats . in America the democratic party achieved five successive victories from 1932 against wealthier opponents . only the most simple-minded materialist would reject Key &apos;s statement : money is not the sole currency of politics ; Roosevelt held counters in the game that outweighed money . there is , of course , a distinction between buying votes and buying political favours . some labour criticism of political spending by business firms has fastened upon the allegation that these firms are buying preferential treatment from conservative governments , as well as seeking to influence all voters to oppose nationalization . it has similarly been charged that labour &apos;s failure to press nationalization of insurance was due to its financial links with the co-operatives , and that its industrial policy , or the absence thereof , is dictated by the unions &apos; power over labour &apos;s purse . to note financial links between interested groups and parties is not to prove that government favours are for sale ; it only shows that there are some questions of public policy on which a party government can not be disinterested . only if the exchequer were made the sole source of party funds , which no one suggests , could parties be made absolutely independent financially of such pressure groups . whether , as in the case of the labour party , the economic interest creates the political organization , or whether the party attracts the interests , is beside the point . much of the money that the parties raise is spent on party headquarters and constituency organization ; the value of both of these is often overrated by those who are closest to them . 