Tories spent £18.6m on disastrous snap general election campaign

The Tories spent four times more than Labour on Facebook and Google during the disastrous snap election last year but still lost their majority. 

The Electoral Commission disclosed that the political parties spend more than £4m on social media websites during the election, more than twice as much as in 2015. 

The Tories spent £2.1m on Facebook and £562,000 on Google, compared to Labour which spent £577,000 on Facebook and £254,000 on Google.

The Liberal Democrats spent £412,000 on Facebook and £203,000 on Google.  The figures show that overall the Conservatives spent £18.6million on the snap election, Labour £11million and the Liberal Democrats £6.7million.

While Labour spent significantly less than the Tories on the snap election, the grassroots campaign group Momentum, which supports Jeremy Corbyn, gained huge traction online.

The spending means that the Tories spent the equivalent of £1.3million for every one of the 13 seats that the party lost during the disastrous campaign. 

The Electoral Commission also disclosed the Best for Britain, a George Soros-backed group campaigning for the UK to stay in the EU, is under investigation for not returning £25,000 from an "impermissible donor" within 30 days.

The Tories and Liberal Democrats are also under investigation for making payments to suppliers after deadlines.