Seems Guido might not have been too hot on his research -
Zelo Street: Labour Battle Bus Scandal Isn’t
Crick Crick’d
There's rumblings on twitter this is about to go Nuclear for all the Political Parties.
And there is a hint on the Tory side of the scandal that this may well extend beyond the marginal seats aka almost every seat. Constitutional Crisis in the making perhaps.
Also the SNP are demanding the Met investigates the Conservative party over the alleged Electoral Fraud - Michael Crick on Twitter
I'm sure Labour and co have probably done similar things to the Tories, but it seems at the moment that the Tories did it in a much bigger way. Whatever the truth is, I'm sure Guido will be salivating over the prospect of ending many MP's careers from various Political Parties. Just as he did over the expenses scandal. And to think the Electoral Law that's been broken was bought in during the Blair years I believe (will have to check on that).
Why Guido? Why not everyone? This is the law. Isn't everyone happy that if they are caught doing the crime they do the time? This isn't just the ending of careers. This can mean jail.
Tory MPs fear jail over election spending
Breaching spending limits in a local constituency is a criminal offence.
Each turning a blind eye to the others in case they are the first one in the newspapers?
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10154401003639218
Channel 4 News have done a Stirling job of investigating and exposing this, unlike the rest of the media. This could very well bring the current Government down, but I would assume we are months away from any charges being pressed and trials taking place.
It might be worth taking a look at the recent utterances of David Allen Green who writes for the FT. If he turns out to be correct, this could be entirely anticlimactic.
He's looking at the rules that set out what the Electoral Commission can do in terms of issuing fines under the 2000 Act that sets out the EC's responsibilities. What he doesn't appear to have done is look at possible breaches of The Representation of the People Act 1983 (and subsequent revisions). That's the critical question here - along with it looking like they broke spending limits by trying to pass off local spending as national expenses, did they also break the Representation of the People Act in the process. That's probably why the Electoral Commission handed things over to the Police to investigate, who I believe retain the power to press charges in these matters (though it may have changed). I'm well aware this could go nowhere, we shall just have to wait and see. If charges are bought, then that means Election Courts and Judges making the final decision.
I'd rather pay attention to what experts in the UK Constitution and Electoral Law have to say about this rather than an FT journalist with a Law degree. It's a very specialist area of the law and quite arcane in many respects.
Watchdog fines Lib Dems £20,000 over undeclared general election payments « Express & Star
The Electoral Commission said it had also referred the matter to the police to see if any criminal offences have been committed.
The investigation found that 307 payments totalling £184,676 were missing from the Lib Dems' spending return without a reasonable excuse.
In addition, invoices supporting 122 out of the 307 payments were missing from the party's return, the Electoral Commission said.
Oops.