Labour handed £20,000 fine over undeclared election spending including the 'Ed Stone'

Not for the first time, the EdStone has come back to haunt the Labour Party.

The stone tablet was unveiled by Ed Miliband ahead of last year’s election, with his six key election promises carved into it.

It was widely considered to be a terrible idea even before the Conservatives secured a shock majority and the then Labour leader resigned.

If that wasn’t bad enough, Labour has just been fined £20,000 by the Electoral Commission for undeclared election spending during the campaign — including more than £7,000 on the EdStone.

The fine is the largest imposed by the body in its history.

Journalists had alerted the commission to problems in spending when they noticed the two-tonne slab was missing from the commission’s return.

The party undertook an internal review, unearthing 24 other undeclared election expenses totalling £109,777, according to the Guardian.

Then, the commission’s investigation identified a further 49 missing payments totalling £11,357.

Bob Posner, the commission’s director of party and election finance, said: “The Labour party is a well-established, experienced party.

“Rules on reporting campaign spending have been in place for over 15 years and it is vital that the larger parties comply with these rules and report their finances accurately if voters are to have confidence in the system.”

The EdStone was subject to some ridicule 

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A Labour party spokeswoman said: “Labour has cooperated fully with the Electoral Commission during its investigation into general election 2015 campaign spending by political parties.

“The commission’s investigation found that internal procedural errors led to a relatively small number of items of expenditure not being declared properly. The party regrets these administrative errors. However, these amounted to just over 1 per cent of our total spending of over £12m during this election.

“We accept the findings of the report and have already tightened our internal recording procedures to address the commission’s concerns.”

The whereabouts of the slab, which contained pledges such as “a strong economic foundation” and “higher living standards for working families”, became the subject of widespread speculation after the election.

Although no one was ever able to locate it, a party source eventually confirmed that is had been destroyed.