Tories broke electoral law with leaflet drop, says former Lib Dem MP
![Adrian Sanders lost his Torbay seat to the Tory candidate at the 2015 election [Image: Johnny Green/PA Archive/Press Association Images].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/160513-Adrian-Sanders.png)
Adrian Sanders lost his Torbay seat to the Tory candidate at the 2015 election [Image: Johnny Green/PA Archive/Press Association Images].
A former MP has called for police to launch a new investigation into whether the Conservative party breached electoral law with a leaflet drop last year.
The Liberal Democrat candidate Adrian Sanders has accused the Tories of breaking the rules by delivering letters urging residents to vote for the Conservative candidate in the Devon constituency of Torbay as part of their national campaign for the 2015 general election.
The cost of the leaflet drop was registered under the party’s national campaign budget, but Sanders argues it should have fallen under the local budget – a much smaller limit.
Investigations into the Conservative party have already been launched by other police forces across the country, focusing on whether the Tories breached spending rules before their knife-edge poll win last year.
Sanders, who lost his seat to the Conservative Kevin Foster, said of the leaflet on BBC Radio 4’s Today show: “It’s not a general leaflet. It is a specific targeted mailshot to a voter in a given constituency saying vote for our candidate in that constituency.
“That has to be a local cost, not a national expense.”
Source: Tories broke electoral law with leaflet drop, says former Lib Dem MP | Politics | The Guardian
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It is clear the Tories deliberately targeted Lib Dem seats in the 2015 general election.
The fact they ended up with a slight majority in the Commons owes a lot to them winning up to 49 Lib Dem seats.
I suspect Dodgy Dave, Crazy Crosby and Grabbing Gideon may well be having to answer many more questions of this nature relating to other constituencies.
Ultimately, 2015 may well become known as the “stolen” general election.
Stolen, that is, by the Tories, at the expense of the Liberal Democrats.
Some Lib Dem MPs deserved to lose their seats, though the main one who should have lost his seat – Clegg – did not lose his.
There is no doubt in my mind that this was a deliberate national criminal conspiracy which goes right to the top of the Nasty Party.