[Closed] Election expenses probe.

The party has admitted failing to declare £38,000 of general election expenses for accommodation costs, blaming an "administrative error".

To be fair these sort of things happen. In 2010 the Tories said they would clear the deficit within 5 years, not to do so would be irresponsible, they claimed.

I'm sure an "administrative error" was to blame when they completely failed.

Pretty poor show by the Tories. They would have been much better off copying Labour and just organising themselves to corrupt the postal voting and engaging in the sort of systematic outright electoral fraud of the sort we've now seen quite a few cities.

Both of these practices are outliers though - generally our electoral system is pretty transparent and thankfully not muddied by the £Billions that get spent in the USA. I think all parties combined spent less than £30m at the last election - and that's probably a good thing.

systematic outright electoral fraud of the sort we've now seen quite a few cities.

You would imagine that systemic widespread electoral fraud by the political party that the papers want keep out might [i]be[i] in the papers a bit, and also under investigation by the electoral commission and several police forces if it was actually 1) systematic 2) widespread 3) fraud.

Agreed we have a rather transparent electoral system compared to many second world countries. Absolutely no gerrymandering, rigging of lobbying legislation and stealth striking off of electoral rolls on our watch, guv.

That this issue is being pursued is suggestive that we need to keep our standards high, and that we need a channel 4!

Seems the CPS have cleared the path to allow bizzies to poke around a bit more.

Looks like a storm in a teacup.

£38k? Really? Has anyone any idea how much is spent on US elections?

and it will lead to new elections and criminal charges against those who did the wrong doings.

Going to be an intresting or dixcel year for the fories.

£38k? Really? Has anyone any idea how much is spent on US elections?

Yes I do. Perhaps if the other parties had also spent overspent by £38k (and actually its really about multiple smaller sums of money totalling a bit more than £38k and relating to not just accommodation but the battlebuses too, in very specific swing seats won by the slenderest majorities) then there might have been a number of swing seats swinging the other way.

If we are playing that game too, could you tell me the last US president to be elected who did not spend more money overall than their opponent?

Going to be an intresting or dixcel year for the fories

Has anyone any idea how much is spent on US elections?

I don't live in the US so I actually care what happens in the UK. Ch4 news covered this the rest have pretty much ignored it.

I think the overspend is just the narrow end of the wedge tbh. The bigger issue isn't the overspend itself, it's the spend full stop- the bus campaign was justified as a "national campaign promoting the party" to get round local spending requirements but according to the C4 and Mirror investigations, it targeted just 24 seats, and was promoting the individual candidates very directly. So, forget about £38000, they're working on the angle that the entire campaign was illegitimate I think, this is just sowing doubt.

£38000 is a drop in the bucket nationally but the local limits are small, the Mirror has 20 seats out of the 24 overbudget by their estimates, some by over 10%.

People will say it's too small an amount to matter but MP Craig Mackinlay thinks it does.

"Thanks for your help @RoadTrip2015 – it’s making a huge difference!”

Ch4 news covered this the rest have pretty much ignored it.

Well there's a surprise, BBC in falling over backwards not to upset the Tories shocker. They may as well just hand it to Murdoch and get him to run it.

Northwind, Battle bus campaign was £2k [b]per day[/b] -£38k is just for the underdeclared hotel bills. What is hard to evidence is that the buses were sent specifically to the key swing constituencies and if so how much of the battlebus spend should be attached to those individual campaigns as oppsed to the overall national budget.

Unfortunately for those mp's whose expenses are being questioned, the internet is awash with dated photos and news reports of the them plus a bus in their patches, and very little evidence that the buses spent much time anywhere else at all. My favourite local example being cameron and the "crowd" of carefully selected locals hidden away from the rest of the angry cornish plebs inside the big shed at the royal cornwall showground. How you challenge and defend that in court will be fun reading.

@Julian- yup, worth reading through the Mirror breakdown, it's all very estimatey but they've put a price on the entire campaign, split it across the targeted seats and then linked that to the spend vs limit in each seat.

Isn't this a C4 scoop. That's how they have been presenting it on the news for the past few days. So no surprise that they are the main "party" covering it.

Who has the data - C4 and the Police. Who else?

Each individual police force has been told it's up to them to decide how (or whether) to proceed. On the same day as the PCC elections.

So yeah, that's it kicked well under the carpet.

Ben, its not a 24 hour story. C4 seem to have a good expose here, the police are involved and there must be some sweaty Tories out there. Error or not (no really!) looks like they have been caught out breaking the rules and I cant see C4 letting this go...

I hope you're right. I'm just too cynical sometimes 😉

Channel 4 have been hammering away at this for weeks now. To a collective shrug. Much as I despise the Tories, and would love to be horrified at their devious underhand carry on - this just seems to amount to a grand here, and a grand there, in a few constituencies.

I'd love to scream FRAUD, but this looks like a bit of cheekily liberal interpretation of the rules, at worst, rather than widespread, premeditated fraud.

if you are looking for a scandal, I agree with Molls - whats scandalous is how the BBC has meekly surrendered to Tory Threats, and is now so cowed that it spinelessly refuses to even hint at criticising them

Its pathetic!

binners - Member

this just seems to amount to a grand here, and a grand there, in a few constituencies.

And when you put it like that- like they would love you to- then it sounds like nothing. But the limit for these constituencies is mostly £10-£15K so a grand here, a grand there is quite a big deal.

(I'm really surprised it's so small btw!)

The Beeb is biased binners - you must know that. Do you think they might even mention the Battle of Orgreave today? Some chance....

Take a look at @LabourEoin's Tweet: https://twitter.com/LabourEoin/status/727969885779832836?s=09

if you are looking for a scandal, I agree with Molls - whats scandalous is how the BBC has meekly surrendered to Tory Threats, and is now so cowed that it spinelessly refuses to even hint at criticising them

The Beeb is biased binners - you must know that. Do you think they might even mention the Battle of Orgreave today? Some chance....

[url= http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/eight-police-forces-launch-investigations-into-tory-general-election-2015-fraud-accusations-a7017976.html ]Things moving on a little? [/url]

Can't imagine how the Devon and cornwall police's investigations will go: our new pcc is the [url= http://http://www.channel4.com/news/election-expenses-tory-pcc-candidate-under-scrutiny ]same person who was campaign manager for one of the MP's (Torbay) [/url] whose expenses were questioned last summer. 😕

I'm a bit worried that bus might grab me with its mandibles tbh