Tory Party faces questions over £3.6m unaccounted for in 2019 election | Researchers say it is unclear where more than a fifth of the Conservatives’ national spend went during the election
Tory Party faces questions over £3.6m unaccounted for in 2019 election | Researchers say it is unclear where more than a fifth of the Conservatives’ national spend went during the election
6 comments
> More than 200 of the 347 local Conservative branches that submitted returns for the general election failed to include any invoices at all for their spending, meaning it was impossible to find out exactly what they spent their money on . . .
> Political parties are legally required to submit invoices for any spend over £200 during a general election, explaining what the sum was spent on. The Electoral Commission told openDemocracy it was aware of the Conservative Party breaches but had decided it was “not proportionate” to take any enforcement action . . .
> An invoice submitted by the Conservative Party for a £1.6m contract with CTF Partners Limited, the political consultancy run by Tory election guru Lynton Crosby, was designated “completely unclear” because it gave “exceedingly limited detail about their activity”.
How much over £200 would it have to be, exactly, for an investigation to be considered *proportionate*?
> A £700k contract the Tories signed with political consultancy firm Hanbury Strategy was also “completely unclear” because it gave no explanation of what services were provided.
> Hanbury, which was co-founded by an ally of Dominic Cummings, [was later awarded contracts worth £640,000](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/04/dominic-cummings-allys-pr-firm-hanbury-strategy-given-covid-19-contracts-without-tenders) without [due oversight] tendered by the government during the pandemic.
> The Conservative Party did not respond to a request for comment.
All corrupt lying thieving bastards
There have been people complaining about the Tory approach to Electoral Finance since 2010. The Battle Bus being just on thing. The bussing of “students” to Constituencies and the questionable payments around having American Students campaigning in a UK Election. Perfectly innocent. Obviously.
But…but… the Conservative Party has ethics advisors and collective responsibility and constituency organisations and all sorts of democratic safeguards to prevent them being, en masse, a bunch of pompous, selfish, corrupt, fascist cunts…
….don’t they?
Cambridge Analitica
The only thing the Tories are competent at is committing electoral fraud.
The electoral commission ruled the law was broken in the last two elections as well as the brexit ref but has brought zero prosecutions, just issued fines constituting a fraction of the overspent amounts.
Unless individuals can be found culpable no case can be brought, and due to use of contractors and 3rd parties no one ever was.