In article
,
john.loony@tiscali.co.uk (JohnLoony) wrote:

> Conversely, Parliamentary elections require 10 signatures and a
> deposit of £500, which is about right because it produces a reasonable
> number of candidates (about 4 to 8 per constituency).  If the deposit
> for parliamentary candidates were £5,000 and requiring 100 signatures,
> then minor party or independent candidates would be cut to a maximum,
> and even the Lib Dems would have to reduce drastically their number of
> candidates.

The number of Lib Dems would be barely affected. Labour and Tories lose
as many deposits as Lib Dems these days.

-- 
Cllr. Colin Rosenstiel
Cambridge                    http://www.rosenstiel.co.uk/
Cambridge Liberal Democrats: http://www.cambridgelibdems.org.uk/

On Fri, 16 Nov 2007 07:50 +0000 (GMT Standard Time),
rosenstiel@cix.co.uk (Colin Rosenstiel) wrote:

>In article
>,
>john.loony@tiscali.co.uk (JohnLoony) wrote:
>
>> Conversely, Parliamentary elections require 10 signatures and a
>> deposit of £500, which is about right because it produces a reasonable
>> number of candidates (about 4 to 8 per constituency).  If the deposit
>> for parliamentary candidates were £5,000 and requiring 100 signatures,
>> then minor party or independent candidates would be cut to a maximum,
>> and even the Lib Dems would have to reduce drastically their number of
>> candidates.
>
>The number of Lib Dems would be barely affected. Labour and Tories lose
>as many deposits as Lib Dems these days.

Of the three main parties, the Conservatives have lost the most
deposits at each of the last two general elections (due to contesting
some seats in NI, I believe). Labour hasn't lost a deposit since 1992.
http://www.psr.keele.ac.uk/area/uk/uktable.htm