Taxpayers should be asked to help fund political parties on a voluntary basis, according to a Midland MP.
John Maples (Con Stratford) called for a publicly-funded scheme so parties no longer needed to rely on help from rich donors.
But he said it must be voluntary because taxpayers would resent being forced to pay for politicians.
Income taxpayers could be asked to donate £2.50 each, raising £20 million a year, he said.
The comments, made in the House of Commons, follow the continuing controversy over allegations that Labour accepted loans totalling £4.5 million in return for peerages and figures from the Electoral Commission showing the cost of running an election campaign.
Labour spent £17.9 million in the last General Election, including £530,375 for the services of Mark Penn, a political strategist who once advised Bill Clinton.
The Conservatives spent £17.8 million, including £441,000 on the services of Lynton Crosby, the Australian election guru.
Former Tory leader Michael Howard also spent £3,600 on make-up while Lib Dem Charles Kennedy spent £2,000 on cosmetics and nearly £5,000 on suits.
Labour spent £300 on Star Trek costumes to taunt John Redwood.
Mr Maples said: "We all have this problem and, if we have to raise money to pay for party politics, it is much easier for a party treasurer's to raise it in large donations.
"That leads to an unsavoury series of events, whereby Ministers have to turn up at dinners and people think that they have access. It gives at least the appearance of corruption, even if there is none in reality."
His proposal would involve income taxpayers volunteering a small sum, which would go into an election fund.
Parties which accepted only small donations would then be able to double their money by claiming support from the fund, he said.
"To participate in match-funding, a party would have to agree that it would not accept any donations over a certain size.
"In my view, that would be £10,000. I think that £50,000 is far too much. It may not seem a lot to us or a party treasurer but to most of our constituents £50,000 is a huge pile of money."
He added: "Let us say that the figure that one could check on one's tax return or coding and give voluntarily was £2.50. There are 27 million income taxpayers in the United Kingdom. If 30 per cent of them agreed to give £2.50 each, the pot of match funding would amount to about £20 million a year."
Mr Maples said: "It is an alternative to the compulsory taxpayer funding that I sense all parties are drifting towards.
"Raiding the taxpayers' pot is too comfortable a solution and too easy." The public wanted "the big donors" removed from politics, he said.
