Parties 'spend less fighting elections than 40 years ago'

POLITICAL parties are spending less on elections than they did decades ago, despite their pleas for state funding to ease their reliance on donors.

Spending ahead of elections has fallen in the past 40 years compared with average earnings, research to be published today shows.

In the wake of controversy over donors, the government, with the backing of major parties, has called for more state funding and curbs on election expenditure.

But the Policy Exchange, a think-tank, says "reformers are proposing to cure a largely imaginary malady".

Taxpayers already give political parties massive indirect subsidies that did not exist in previous decades, says Paying for the Party: Myths and Realities in British Political Finance.