RULES FOR JOINING CLUBS....

Of course, my first rule is the well-known, hackneyed one that I would never join a club that would ever have me as a member.

But another rule is being discussed in the murky corners of Westminster. As the Labour Party funding drama escalates into a crisis, Gordon Brown is muttering darkly about reviewing the whole business of party political funding.

Talks between the Tories, Labour and LibDems broke up recently when, allegedly, the Tories walked out in protest at Labour`s reluctance to have a limit placed on the contributions made by Trade Unions to Labour`s coffers.

Now it seems that Brown is anxious to re-open discussions aimed at reaching an `all-party agreement` on a way forward; yet how this can ever be an all-party agreement when Plaid Cymru and other `minority` parties have not been included in the talks escapes me.

However and whatever the outcome, watch out for the resurrection of the idea that there should be public funding - partly or wholly - of political parties. We should be clear here. Political parties are private, voluntary organisations; people are free to choose whether to join or not and free to join which of the political `clubs` appeals to them the most or, indeed - like me - have nothing to do with any of them.

I`m intrigued by the notion that I might be paying, through my taxes, towards the costs of maintaining private, voluntary clubs in which I have no interest and certainly no intention of joining. More intriguing still is the worrying point that it is the political parties themselves who are in a position, in Parliament, to bring this blatant unfairness into law. These are clubs making their own rules....and they expect the rest of us to abide by them. Well.....

Sorry, if you want to belong to a political party, fine...but please don`t force me to pay for your subscriptions. (Not that any of the parties would ever have me as a member anyway.)