Should Oxfam, a charity, advocate tougher tax rules for multinational companies?  Should local authorities fund campaigns for minimum pricing of alcohol?   Or NGOs, partly financed by public funds, campaign against welfare cuts?

These issues have recently gained salience.  The Charity Commission has spoken out on the distinction between charitable and political activity. New rules on election expenses mean that many third party campaign expenditures fall within the spending limits imposed by the Electoral Commission. Most recently the government has decided to insert in government contracts a provision prohibiting its money being used to promote or influence legislation.

           Should  record companies fund lobbyists in London and Brussels to extend the length of their copyright?  A state controlled bank lobby against limits on bankers’ bonuses, or a government sponsored company make propaganda for high speed rail?  Should EU institutions engage in Britain’s referendum debate?

I find that most people think that money should be spent  lobbying for things they favour, but not on causes they dislike.  And recent attempts to limit political activity have an obvious  political motive.  Much of the credit, or the blame, for the new restrictions lies at the door of Christopher Snowdon, who has written several pamphlets for the right of centre, charitable, Institute of Economic Affairs.

But the question ought to be one of general principle rather than petty partisanship.  Snowdon cites Thomas Jefferson, who wrote that ‘to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical’.   Jefferson seems to make a fair point.   Taxpayers should not subsidise political campaigns.  And charities acquire privileges because they engage in activities, like the relief of poverty, which all agree are for the public good:  but lobbying can serve a purpose only when there is no agreement on what constitutes the public good.

And yet there is a spectrum of activity: helping the poor, understanding the causes of poverty, promoting  measures to relieve poverty –  and it is not at all clear where one would draw a line or whether indeed there is a line to be drawn.  There is also another spectrum of activity, from making people aware of what the government is doing, to promoting the interests of the political party which is in government at the moment.   And while there does seem a line to be drawn here, it is difficult to determine where that line is – although I sense that it is a line that is increasingly being crossed.

One need only look across the Atlantic to see that corruption of the political system by funding from rich men and powerful corporations is a more serious problem than charities protesting against government cuts. That American corruption has not only led to bad policy; today it threatens the stability of democracy as the men and corporations behind it lose control of the populism they unleashed.

     I am proud  of the achievements of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, today an exemplar of how analysis can be both non partisan and directly relevant to policy.  Organisations like the Bank of England, the Royal Society and the judiciary similarly enhance our democracy by being independent of government while wholly or partly funded by it.

       We need to hear more from these institutions and less from Greenpeace and Trump.   The quality of political debate is a far more important issue than the misuse of small amounts of state or charitable funding, and the expression of unconsidered opinions, or views that people have been paid to hold, are much greater threats to  democracy and free speech  A mature democracy should fund , and will thrive on, a diversity of thoughtful and sincerely argued views.  On reflection, Jefferson was wrong.