The Tories systematically cheat in elections,

In an extraordinary investigation for Channel 4, Michael Crick has uncovered repeated electoral fraud by the Conservative party in the run-up to the 2015 general election. While the rest of the broadcast media largely ignores the story, the party’s own workers are speaking out, calling for an investigation into the Tories’ “systematic” breach of election rules.


If you don’t watch Channel 4 News, this may be the first you’ve heard of the Tories’ criminal efforts to buy elections, although The Canary covered it here. So here’s a quick outline:
It was 2014, the year before the general election. David Cameron was fighting off “the Ukip threat”. He had already pledged to hold an EU referendum to keep eurosceptic voters happy. Then one of his MPs resigned, triggering a by-election in Newark – which Ukip thought it could win. Within months, two more by-elections were triggered when the Conservative MPs for Clacton and Rochester & Strood, Douglas Carswell and Mark Reckless, both defected to Ukip.


The Conservatives threw everything they had at fighting the by-elections. David Cameron visited Rochester five times, and MPs and Conservative Headquarters’ staff flooded all three constituencies to do whatever it took to win. Now it seems that included breaking the law.
Channel 4 has uncovered hard evidence that the Conservatives spent more than the legal £100,000 limit in each of the three by-elections. Not just by a few pounds, or by a few thousand pounds, but by well over £90,000 across the three elections.
Then, instead of declaring their overspend, the party submitted misleading expense returns to returning officers – a criminal offence. It kept well over 1,200 nights of local hotel accommodation off the books. Many of those nights were signed for in a personal capacity by Conservative HQ Campaign Specialist Marion Little, who was later awarded an OBE for her by-elections work.
Confronted with this evidence, Conservative members were horrified by their party HQ’s behaviour. Delyth Miles, chair of the Clacton Conservative Party Association, immediately called for an investigation. Katie Woodland, then a paid Conservative party campaign manager for Telford who was asked to help with the Clacton by-election campaign told Channel 4:

The fact that it happened in three by-elections, one after the other, it’s systematic. And they know the law. They’ve been running elections for years … To do it three in a row, and to do it pretty big in a couple of places, means there was full intention behind it.

http://www.thecanary.co/2016/02/29/tories-systematically-cheat-elections-says-campaign-manager/
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If an athlete cheats in a competition they get banned for varying periods of time

perhaps the tories should be banned from contesting the next GE ????

Shock horror! MP's and political parties lie and cheat!!!!

Whatever next.
And there's me thinking we could totally trust them.

To be fair, it's not just the Tory's, Labour are not blameless either. actually they are all at it.

eddie wrote:Shock horror! MP's and political parties lie and cheat!!!!

Whatever next.
And there's me thinking we could totally trust them.

This isn't the same as spinning politics Eddie, this is against the law of the land.  As Treasurer of our local party, when it came to the elections we had to be very, very careful that our accounts were spot on.  I worked with the local agent on the General Election books and I did the Local Election books and we were very careful they were separate and that we kept well within the budgets.

And NO Nicko, it is not usual, the books are VERY carefully vetted and those that Channel 4 has found out about, it has done because the Conservatives own local agents were appalled at what was going on.

Delyth Miles, chair of the Clacton Conservative Party Association, immediately called for an investigation. Katie Woodland, then a paid Conservative party campaign manager for Telford who was asked to help with the Clacton by-election campaign told Channel 4:

The fact that it happened in three by-elections, one after the other, it’s systematic. And they know the law. They’ve been running elections for years … To do it three in a row, and to do it pretty big in a couple of places, means there was full intention behind it.