Tories spent more than £16m on general election, watchdog figures show

The Conservatives spent more than £16 million on the last general election campaign, a watchdog has said.

The Electoral Commission revealed the party spent £16,486,871 across the country in order to gain its 80-seat Commons majority in December 2019.

The biggest chunk of the money, £5,818,998, went on “unsolicited material to electors”, the commission said.

Marketing and canvassing cost £4,471,937, and advertising came in at £3,011,665.

Rallies and other such events saw £529,650 spent on them.

The Tories paid campaign expert Sir Lynton Crosby’s CTF company £1,689,000.

Sir Lynton previously helped Boris Johnson become mayor of London.

The PR company Topham Guerin was paid £458,688 for Twitter graphics and videos.

The firm was involved in controversy during the leaders’ debate by rebranding the Tory Twitter account FactCheckUK.

The party spent over £1 million on Facebook.

Tory costs included more than £22,000 for fast food deliveries.

Picture agency Parsons Media received three payments totalling £44,975 from the Tories.

Andrew Parsons of Parsons Media subsequently went on to work as photographer for Prime Minister Boris Johnson at the taxpayers’ expense.

Figures for the Labour Party have yet to be published as its financial submissions to the commission were late due to the coronavirus outbreak.

The report shows the cost of the SNP campaign was £1,004,952.

Plaid Cymru spent £183,914 in the December election, and the Independent Group for Change paid out £29,556.

The cost of the Ukip general election push was £8,761.

The figures for other parties will be released in batches, the commission said.