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Tuesday 14 June 2016

Tory Expenses - Fawkes Bus Busted

The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, long believed to be a disownable branch of CCHQ, have been dutifully deflecting attention from the Tories’ spending on last year’s General Election with claims that “they were all at it”, and in particular taking aim at Battle Buses used by both Labour and the Lib Dems in the last weeks of the campaign. This has taken up a considerable part of their time recently.
The Fawkes folks were particularly keen on the “Labour Express” operation, first going after Rupa Huq, who defeated Angie Bray in Ealing Central and Acton, and concludingthis is identical to what the Tories were doing”. More candidates were then revealed to have had Labour Express visits. Then MP Paula Sheriff was shown to have had a bus visit. They even got their pals at the Sun to run an item.

Even national battle bus tours, it was suggested, where up to no good, especially the Lib Dems, where Fawkes fans were toldProof Libdem Battle Bus Did Transport Activists”, and were then presented with‘Cheated’ Libdem Pictured Campaigning On Battle Bus”, a story about defeated candidate Tessa Munt. Sadly, the Police declined to take complaints about Ms Munt any further, and now more bad news has arrived.

The ever-vigilant Mr Ceebs has been assembling invoices for bus and coach travel for the three main English parties, but has found only one vehicle for the Lib Dems, concluding “once again a vehicle for the party leader, so rightly part of the national campaign”. For Labour, he found “two buses … the Battle Bus and the Press Bus, so both are properly part of the national campaign”. What of the Tories?

Ah well. Having located an invoice for yet another midi-sized coach, he concluded “we now have a grand total of nine coaches and two midi coaches”. Eleven vehicles. There is no way that all those can be attributed to the national campaign, especially when that list is married up to previous claims about three Battle Buses for activists, a dedicated bus for SpAds, and a “virtual bus” of fifty activists travelling by rail.

It gets worse: Michael Crick at Channel 4 News, who was confronted by Staines and his claims that “they were all at it”, revealed yesterday that the Labour Students’ “Battle Buses” were in fact small people carriers, costing a fraction of the hire costs the Tories shelled out for each of their coaches. And then there was Labour Express.

Crick tells “We have analysed and mapped all 19 seats visited by any vehicle described as ‘Labour Express’ … We’ve also charted how much the local candidate spent in each seat, and calculated whether by declaring the costs of the Labour Express as local spending, those candidates would have exceeded their local spending limit”.

His conclusion? “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”. That means The Great Guido is well and truly Fawked once again.

But there is good news from Crick: he has found “strong evidence” against one party. Sadly for the Fawkes rabble, that party is the Tories. Another fine mess, once again.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Poor Gidiot it seems his UKIP chums are the cheaters like Tories
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/13/ukip-failed-to-declare-election-expenses-in-seat-lost-by-nigel-f/

Last Laugher said...

Is Mr righteous still hiding his personal details of nearest and dearest whilst throwing everyone underneath a bus?

Oh dear. It won't last much longer.

Not now complaints have gone in to intelligence.
Somebody needed to complain to the right agency. You can't rely on dirt bags who are no better than Stained himself to serve justice.

A.Robot (Mrs) said...

Is that a recent picture of Staines? He seems to have lost weight.

Bob said...

Comment 1/Tel article - good to see the expenses are being spread around unlike the donations, which it is alleged were not. From UKIP watch:
One financial scandal? UKIP watcher should have made that two, following the Sunday Telegraph report of an admission from Campbell Bannerman that only 15% of funds raised through UKIP’s call centre in Ashford have been paid into the party’s head office accounts.

Five former members of the party's national executive committee, UKIP's governing body, have claimed that around £500,000 is unaccounted for in this manner.
Of particular interest is that the Ashford call centre was set up in October 2003 by Nigel Farage, who then ran UKIP's south-east regional office. Staff processed donations and annual membership subscriptions.

However, even though the staff processed donations from across the country the money was paid into the accounts controlled by the south-east office.

Members of the NEC at the time said they were appalled that this allowed Mr Farage to control the majority of donations to the party. They also said for a nine month period in 2004 and 2005 Mr Farage declined to provide the NEC with details of how much money the call centre generated.

In the words of former UKIP member Linda Guest in her resignation letter :

"I see no point in supporting any party that is controlled by a leadership that displays such contempt for democracy when it comes to its own members."

UKIP watch would also like to know where the missing money is, Nigel?

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rob said...

"****Wait for one and a fleet arrives****

Bus here, some day, Tories here, we say
Please share your expenses
Bus there, another day, Tories there, we say
Please record your expenses

All that election they employed them
Wind, more wind and whine
Those battlebuses they enjoyed them
But those expenses got left behind

Voters in marginals they would see them painted in Tory blue
Filled with workers to give a hand and they would canvass true
After it was over they supped and drank their fill
Not a thought was had "who's paying the wretched bill"?

Then the whole mess blew apart
Upsetting CCHQ
What to us looks a total fraud
They call an "oversight"for me and you

Nostalgia said...

Bring back the trams.

No virgin trains or HS2.

Better than driverless cars.

Give us something reliable, cheap and easily interchangeable.




Gweedo Fawkes said...

Chabliiiiissss

Check out my latest tweets.

Chuka Calls Ken “Pathetic”, Ken Calls Chuka “Wriggling”


They both call me FAB.


Fat
Arsed
Bastard

Chabliiiiiiis

Anonymous said...

Wouldn't surprise me in the least if "They're all at it."

After all, this is the most corrupt country in Europe.

The point is the tories are apparently by far the biggest offenders and should be exposed accordingly..........Well, they did start the corruption when they built Canary Wharf on land they stole from public ownership......Ever since, every barrow boy and spiv inside the M25 ghetto has thieved everything not nailed down.

We get the politics, politicians, media and society we deserve.