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Ken Clarke calls for party funding reforms

Ken Clarke has urged his party to break its links with millionaires and embrace the need for more state funding for political parties.

Ken Clarke Credit: PA Wire

In an interview with Observer, he said it was time for David Cameron to "put on his tin hat" and brave public anger to increase state funding of parties so that the party would be less dependent on having to raise money from wealthy individuals.

I think the Conservative Party will be strengthened if it is less dependent on having to raise money from wealthy individuals. But there is no way any leader can avoid raising funds from large gatherings of that kind. [...]

The solution is for the party leaders to get together, to agree, put on their tin hats and move to a more sensible and ultimately more defensible system.

It puts everything above allegations of conflict of interest if the parties are not beholden to individual people, individual interests, for large sums of money.

– Ken Clarke, in an interview with the Observer

The intervention comes as Ed Miliband continued to attack the Tories for their links to tax dodging activities by wealthy clients at HSBC's Swiss arm. Mr Miliband said Mr Cameron was a "dodgy prime minister, surrounded by dodgy donors."