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Advantages
- It ends opportunities for corrupt use of donations to buy access to the innermost levels of government
- It ensures a wider participation from groups who cannot compete with the financial might of the major parties, thus improving democracy
- State regulation and involvement in the process could make it more transparent and ethical
- It ends the possibility of hidden forms of influence by businesses or individuals making donations to try and benefit them personally or via regulation/ legislation
- It means the state becomes more democratic, as other forms of influence are removed and constituents' views become more important in MPs' decision-making
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Disadvantages
- There is no clear, fair or independent way to distribute funding - allocating on past performance entrenches the same inequalities that private donations do
- Parties may lose some of their independence as a result of their reliance on the state - this is open to abuse and corruption in the future if the state favoured particular parties
- Taxpayers may object to being asked to fund what is technically a set of private organisations from the public purse
- Party funding could eventually have 'strings attached' or dependent clauses leading to excessive state regulation of the parties (funding only if certain conditions are met)
- taxpayers may resent being forced to to financially support a party that they oppose ideologically, and would prefer this to be left to its supporters
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