Police forces start announcing general election expenses investigations
Tories know they’re in trouble when the Daily Mail starts writing stories suggesting they may have committed crimes.
Oh, but Gloucestershire Police has refused to name the political party it had started investigating.
We know that Devon and Cornwall Police are investigating expenses crimes in constituencies they cover – including allegations against the Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner candidate.
This Writer is hoping that, after these two, the floodgates open and all the forces in which expenses fraud has been alleged take their investigations further.
Gloucestershire Police launched a general election fraud probe today amid continued allegations the Conservative Party did not properly declare election expenses relating to its battle bus tour.
David Cameron’s party has faced a series of claims it should have declared the cost of bussing in activists to campaign for constituency candidates on local election expenses, rather than on its national return.
Doing so would in some seats could have meant the party smashed election spending rules.
The new probe comes after the Electoral Commission met with prosecutors to discuss an extension to the one year allowed for launching an investigation of electoral fraud complaints.
Gloucestershire Police today refused to name the political party it was investigating.
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Now – hard to believe, but true – the BBC has finally taken up the story – after the local elections have taken place and far too late to influence the results:-
Seven forces investigating Conservative election expenses
Daniel Sandford
Home Affairs Correspondent
Posted at 15:07
BBC
At least seven police forces are investigating whether election expenses for Conservative MPs were filed illegally after the 2015 General Election. Three of those have told the BBC they are asking for an extension on the time limit of their investigations (otherwise these would expire one year after the election expenses were filed).
Beyond the seven forces, at least four others are considering what to do next or seeking further information.
The allegations centre on the Conservative Party’s “battle buses” of activists that targeted marginal seats. The party did not file the hotel costs of the activists. It says this was an administrative error and should have been entered in the national returns. But the police forces are looking at whether these costs should have been filed by the MPs’ agents in their local expenses. Failing to file correct expenses is a criminal offence.
See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-36050790
As I and all my family signed the letter/petition requesting a Police Investigation in Cheltenham, I will follow this very closely.
Is this a sign of things to come?
The police like the media are in the tory pocket very little will come out of it I should think by now there looking for a big brush to brush to under the carpet the same as Orgreave
Ah, but Orgreave is being resurrected and re-examined.
Channel 4 is on the case again tonight:-
http://www.channel4.com/news/conservative-election-expenses-police-annouce-investigation
This will come to nothing. it will be put down to administration with no intent. A storm in a tea cup. Only a few activists care about it. The general public won’t care any more about it than they did about the phone hacking. That was another non event.
Once or twice might possibly be “MALadministration with no intent”. More than 20 times? Not on your nelly!
People will go to prison for this. High-profile people, too – unless corruption is allowed to hold sway.
It is not 20 times. It is once in reality. The individual candidates probably thought that the battle bus and related expenses were a central election cost for the party or told that was the case. Stories like this are only of interest in the Westminster bubble and to the media.
If they thought it, they thought wrong.
If they were told it, they were deliberately misled.
In either case, they committed an offence, as did those who told them otherwise, right up the chain of command to whoever devised this plot to buy the election.
We know the offence has been committed; this is simply an exercise to establish guilt.
no chance- too many greased palms, all they’ll get is a slapped wrist at worst
Whether prosecutions follow on from police investigations, news of the investigations chime well with the ‘doggy Dave’ and toffs who have lots of money to extra privileges . . drip, drip, drip is the sound of a party losing its hold on power.
shaunt