THERE has been much talk recently about the possibility of political parties being funded by the taxpayers.

I'm so glad our rulers have managed to keep their sense of humour intact. Never mind the Iraq war, Midlands manufacturing going down the tubes and anything else you care to mention being out-sourced to Bombay or some such place.

Oh no, there's still time to laugh and sing like Robin Hood's men. Hey guys, you know how we screw the electorate - let's get them to pay for the privilege of being shafted!

The whole idea of publicly-funded politicians has come about because of some hand-wringing in recently times about donations from rich people and how terrible this all is. Personally, if someone is stupid enough to throw their money away in this manner, then they should be allowed to indulge themselves.

What does it matter if parties occasionally try to conceal the odd million here or the occasional million there? Wholesale fraud is widespread in the world of business and high finance - creative accounting, remember - so why get all precious about political donations? Personally I have no wish to further feather-bed the lives of politicians. What they really need is a dose of market forces, the same pressures that those of us in the real world must endure. For a start, I'd like to see their pay cut by four-fifths, as 80 per cent of our laws now emanate from Brussels. That would only be a start as we would then have to go on to examine the whole freebies and perks system and decide whether the country can really afford it.

Publicly-funded parties? As Norman Tebbit once so memorably said: "On yer bike!"