Tories spent more than rivals combined on disastrous election campaign

The Conservative party spent more than their two closest rivals combined in the run-up to last year’s UK general election, which saw the Tories lose 13 seats and their parliamentary majority.

Theresa May’s party spent £18.6m ahead of the snap general election, close to the national limit of £19.5m, according to figures published on Monday by the Electoral Commission.

That compared with £11m spent by Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party and £6.8m spent by the Liberal Democrats.

Overall spending by various parties at a national level was £41.6m, a slight increase on the £39m total spending in the previous general election in 2015.

The Tories spent four times as much as Labour on Facebook advertising — £2.1m compared with £577,000 — and twice as much on Google advertising — £562,153 compared with £254,514.

The Electoral Commission figures also showed that the Conservatives paid £4m alone to CTF Partners, the advisory firm run by Lynton Crosbyn, and another £544,153 to Messina Group, the firm set up by US politics veteran Jim Messina.

Yet the party ran one of the least successful general election campaigns in recent history, starting with a poll lead of 25 points but ending up only two percentage points ahead of the opposition.

The Scottish National party spent £1.62m, while the Greens spent £299,352, according to the Electoral Commission figures.

The UK Independence party spent just £273,104, raising fresh questions about whether the anti-EU party has a viable future.

However, the Electoral Commission figures do not provide a full picture of campaign spending, because they only show spending on national campaigns by each party and therefore exclude the money spent promoting individual candidates in each constituency.

Under current rules, at a local level, each candidate can spend £8,700 plus either 6p or 9p per local voter, which can add up to many millions in extra spending for political parties.

Previous Electoral Commission figures tracking money raised by political parties in the three-month period from April to June of last year showed that the Tories raised £25m in the period preceding the snap general election, compared to ��9.5m raised by Labour.

The Electoral Commission also announced an array of enforcement actions against most of the main parties on Monday, all relating to minor campaign spending infringements.

The watchdog said the Tories, Greens and Labour are all under investigation for submitting spending returns that were missing invoices and for submitting potentially inaccurate statements relating to payments made.

The Tories and Lib Dems are also under investigation for making multiple payments to suppliers, where the claim for payment was received after the 30-day deadline or paid after the 60-day deadline.

The Women’s Equality Party, Best for Britain and the National Union for Teachers are also under investigation.

The inquiries will consider whether any of the parties breached the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 and are likely to result in fines for the political parties involved.