If the Tories paid ONE ‘unemployed woman’ to be an election activist, how many more could they have hired?
![Craig Mackinlay (left) campaigning with Boris Johnson ahead of the election [Image: PA].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/160530-Craig-Mackinlay-Boris-Johnson.jpg)
Craig Mackinlay (left) campaigning with Boris Johnson ahead of the election [Image: PA].
They have huge financial resources. The more we learn about their 2015 election campaign, the more likely it seems that they spend far more than they should.
So, what was to stop them from hiring as many people as possible and paying them “off the books”, as it were?
This story asks us to believe that Craig Mackinlay knew nothing about what was (allegedly) happening in his own campaign – how many others are in the same position?
And how long must this farce continue before calls for the Metropolitan Police to launch a conspiracy investigation against the Conservative Party are answered?
Police are being asked to investigate extraordinary claims that the Tories paid an unemployed woman to pose as a party supporter and help their general election campaign.
It is alleged that an activist leafleting voters in Thanet South one month before the May poll was hired as a temp for the day but this was not declared locally as an election expense.
Quizzed about her role, it is claimed that she denied being a Tory and said: “I’m not. I was at the job centre and saw this advert for a job with an unknown employer”.
The woman, who is not named, was allegedly then put on a Tory battlebus on April 9, given a Conservative rosette and taken by bus to the Phoenix Youth Club in Sandwich, Kent.
From there, she was allegedly ordered to pound the streets with other genuine party volunteers.
It is not thought she canvassed for the Tories by engaging with voters, which would be a criminal offence, and there is no suggestion Tory MP Craig Mackinlay was aware of the arrangement.
If true, the cost of her wages should have been declared to Mr Mackinlay and included in his election spending return.
Mr Mackinlay is already facing an investigation into claims that his spending declaration is incomplete. The Mirror revealed three months ago that Mr Mackinlay didn’t declare the costs of a string of battlebuses bringing activists to his constituency.
The Conservatives insist the buses were correctly declared as a part of their national election campaign.
Source: Tories ‘paid unemployed woman’ to pose as party activist in election campaign – Mirror Online
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I feel another white wash comeing on
Muddy waters. I think the Tories are taking the proverbial out if us in the certainty that they can get away with anything they like. Makes the Mafia look like amateurs.
This brings me back to a point I made some weeks ago, “Where are these people coming from”; in relation to DC etc campaigning on various company premises around the country. Were they there voluntarily or told to participate. But, there is another angle to this. If these ‘people’ are employees of that company, the company sympathetic to the Tories, by virtue of allowing publicity on their premises, are employees not being paid by the company for this representation? Further, are they also not canvasing voters through their presence? Which ever way you look at it, this is benefit in kind, engineered to attract voters that has a cost attached through amenities and labor. This approach may be cutting the line thin, but a line there is.
Wow! The sheer scale of their fraudulent activity gets bigger and more dishonestly devious by the day.