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I've just noticed that it's possible to back Labour at 510 to win Sleaford and Hykeham; that's equivalent to 483/1 in old money net of their 5% commission which must be something of a record for a major UK party. Worth printing off and sticking in the scrapbook methinks!
On a visit to Kent to campaign for the UK to remain in the EU at this month’s referendum, he said he believed the party could answer all the questions being asked.
http://www.kentonline.co.uk/thanet/news/we-can-answer-questions-on-96913/
......however, if the story is accurate - and given what's happened to the Lib Dems & Lab, and Crick's journalistic skill - there is a very good chance it's legit......in which case it's a belter.....
Feldman & Shapps are gone - McLoughlin became Chairman 14 months after the GE....
Could he go to prison?
Well there's a surprise!
If the Tories are in breach, Labour undoubtedly will be as well. However, it isn't much of a story as it won them half a dozen seats at best (given the message from Miliband boiled down to 'vote for me because I'm not as weird as I come across and slightly less rich than the other guy' that's hardly surprising).
https://www.channel4.com/news/by/michael-crick/blogs/labour-battlebus-operation
For example I can drive to a distant by-election, spend a lot of money in petrol and hotel expenses whilst helping out, and this expenditure doesn't count as it is considered voluntary and personal to me.
A party can do what the Tories did, and provide incentive for people to do exactly the same but by hiring a coach, booking a hotel, and laying on free Transport and accommodation for the helpers (including some paid staff). Clearly an election expense under current rules, but one the Tories tried to argue was national expenditure despite it clearly being aimed at a small number of key locations.
Then there are grey areas like the Torbay Tory direct mail, which the Tories claim was national because it didn't actually mention Torbay or the local candidate's name, but was sent to lots of individual voters in the constituency and made references along the lines of 'in your area'. Personally I would see spending that can only influence a voter in one constituency as obviously local, but that isn't how the Tories have been arguing it.
But pretty clear that in this sort of thing the general refrain 'they're all at it' is true, the degree just varies from place to place.
Will it be changed? I hear the vote in turkey farms this year was for there to be no Christmas, so I'm guessing not!
All parties had their battle buses (battle helicopter, in one case - hi Nicola!) and trying to tie them to arcane rules such as staying in the next town obviously isn't going to work.
The EC should really take a good look at the rules of election spending - I'd favour looser rules on targeted campaigning but with serious penalties (10x the offence?) for offenders, as well as more personal liability for candidates, agents and key party officials. That said, we shouldn't be jailing politicians for electoral offences short of stuffing ballot boxes, that's not how democracy should work.
It might be more tricky in accounting terms (although not hugely so given that most parties budget in some detail for their campaigning in advance) but would at least reduce the scope for disguising obviously targeted spend within the much more generous national spending limits.
You have just implied that politicians think at least some rules apply to them. I would be more cynical than that.
New 'guidance' on national vs local spend, all parties saying that is helpful while only making minor comments about their opponents being the worst offenders?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/08/britain-hard-brexit-theresa-may-limit-damage?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard
He does also say: In every single seat we’ve looked at, the costs of the Labour Express would not have pushed the candidate over the limit, even if they had been declared in full as local spending.
So your summary perhaps underplays the scale of difference between labour and tory bus spending.
If Torbay was affected by serious electoral issues then I would be highly surprised.
I'd reckon the only seat that the battlebus might have had any impact on the final result was The Gower. Oh, and at his lunch, OGH might like to inform Crick that regarding the battlebus, the volunteers paid for their own accommodation. His reporting suggested he didn't know this....
That labour haven't made as big a deal of this as they could is proof, if any were needed, that even if they behaved better than the tories, they know they have behaved badly.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38233852
On the face of it, seems rather grubby behaviour by Pfizer.
I think also the extraordinary and clearly exquisitely staged " West of Suez " imagery we've being seeing of the last 48 hours is a Halley's Comet sized harbnger. In my mind of Doom but that may be my biases.
The most rural tube line? The Metropolitan Line.
The line that runs furthest from the centre? The Central Line.....
It's a national hobby coming up with misleading descriptors......
http://arstechnica.co.uk/science/2016/12/trumps-mad-dog-stays-as-theranos-cuts-figureheads-and-outs-investors/
Fair play to Crick, Guido and others that have actually done some good old-fashioned journalism here.
None of this excuses an utter disregard for the law as it stood but it does indicate going forward that the law is not fit for purpose and needs changed. I really don't like public bodies imposing fairly arbitrary fines on parties who are unlikely (to put it mildly) to want to fight back. it is the sort of practice that gave the EU a bad name. I think these questions are best left to courts.
Although the Brill Tramway, a small rural backwater line 40 miles north of London, seems to have been one of London Underground's oddest lines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brill_Tramway
Though those in power might have a better idea of whether a quick deal is at all likely.
Originally there were only local candidates and local spending, and these were the original expenses rules that worked fine until the media age, when a much looser national limit was slapped on top to provide some constraint (not that it really does) on what the national parties could spend. I vaguely recall the latter being an innovation during the New Labour era, hoping to cap the Tory advantage in national financing.
Unless it has changed very recently, the constituency paperwork looks like something from an historical archive; when I first started out, the party issued copious guidance on how to back-translate a modern campaign into a format that a 19th Century squire would recognise; nowadays I think most agents write something like "see attached sheet" on the form and then submit something that looks like the budgeting spreadsheet for a small enterprise.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-38245646
People and business need to know where they stand.
We need to make better offers, and use our advantages well. But do we have the ministerial team to do that?
Christopher Snowden
"You asked me once, Winston, what was in Room 101. The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world." https://t.co/Qvr6jjs64E
However, if that's actually the position of those around the table from the EU side as we sit down, then it would be for the best to exit quickly to avoid years of uncertainty. Business adapt to new realities more quickly than most people realise, but not knowing tomorrow's rules of the game is what kills them.
How does the law currently define local spending?
The bit that doesn't work at all is passing expenditure in the other direction, hence the Tories now have a big problem.
One answer might be to ensure that the national limit is as constraining as the local ones are.
https://www.ft.com/content/2616fda2-bc06-11e6-8b45-b8b81dd5d080
Very soggy today. On the plus side, the dog was a bit less hassle than has sometimes been the case when it comes to drying her.
http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/gcc-and-britain-announce-new-strategic-partnership