Donations to political parties must only come from individuals and must be capped at £5000 annually. No wealthy individuals, companies, trade unions, religious groups or other groups may make donations to political parties directly or indirectly. Proper accounting and transparency is essential. The politicians will squeal that they need to have huge sums of money to spend on campaigning. Why? It is the responsibility of the media to inform the public in a fair and balanced way, and they do that for free. It doesn’t cost much to get your message across on the Internet. Political parties should be dependent on the goodwill of local people and volunteers. That is much harder work than accepting large amounts of money from interest groups and spending it on professional advisers, consultants, advertisers and polling organisations. It has the added advantage of lowering the barrier to entry for new parties and candidates.