(UPDATE: This complaint was indeed rejected by the Electoral Commission. See also my more recent post about how Guido Fawkes’s source confused an election expense return with a cycle path.)
After all the excitable tweets over the weekend and the dramatic rhetoric about having been researching the topic for a year, you might have thought that when Guido Fawkes blogged today about Chris Huhne’s election expenses there’d be some solid evidence and a plausible complaint.
But no.
In fact, the complaint is so riddled with obvious errors that one’s tempted to say a hacker has snuck into Fawkes Towers and put it up there to discredit Guido. After all, he’s certainly had some bona fide scoops in the past. But this isn’t exactly in that class.
Here’s a sample of the obvious blunders.
a. The complaint against Chris Huhne’s election expenses says that a bill from a firm which printed letterheads (for target letters) doesn’t include the cost of envelopes and therefore concludes that “so the cost of the … envelopes hasn’t been declared”. Unless of course the envelopes were purchased from a different supplier and on a different date. Just like in fact is extremely common practice across all political parties – you buy your letterhead from a printer, your envelopes from a stationery firm, your laser toner from someone else and put all three together to produce target letters.
b. The complaint against Chris Huhne’s election expense also says that some items were (rightly) partly charged against the national expense limit. It then goes on to claim that those items don’t appear on the party’s national expense return. Except that they do. Of course they don’t appear under a specific Eastleigh heading, but then they were items being produced across different seats and so what appears on the national expense return is the total spend across them all.
I could go on but you get the point. Not quite the finest hour of investigative reporting. Especially as they talked about how it’s a story that wasn’t put together in an hour but in a year.
But then we have been here before with Guido and Harry Cole ramping up claims against a Lib Dem MP over election expenditure only for them to fall flat when investigated.
As with the earlier claims over Chris Huhne’s election expenses, all that the evidence presented shows is that the law was kept to and those making the complaints either don’t know what they’re talking about or are deliberately hoping to fool people with arguments they know don’t stand up. I’m happy to take the more generous interpretation though 🙂
(Update: for more on the flaws in the complaint see Paul Walter’s blog post on Chris Huhne’s election expenses.)
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60 Comments
Where do they appear in the national accounts?
Why do former LibDem councillors seem to disagree?
We ain’t finished yet…
Does anybody still read Guido? I mean anybody? We always knew his perspective is distorted but now he’s no longer even entertaining. The Perez Hilton of Westminster – hahaha… hardly!
And those two questions above – what a waste of space, they suggest their own answers. If he can build a profile on that sort of lazy thinking then I should be a fleet street editor by now!
Guido: After a year of digging you really should have read the national expense returns closely enough to spot the entry 🙂
“Guido: After a year of digging you really should have read the national expense returns closely enough to spot the entry”
Why play games, rather than just telling him?
There’s nothing more irritating than people who make factual claims during Internet discussions and then, when asked to back them up, say “Find out for yourself.”
Now we both know a little bit about the web.
Mark do you seriously maintain that the cost of his constituency website, plus graphics, hosting, the appointment of two web design firms etc amounted to £85?
Where are the missing invoices for leaflet printing?
The staffer who during an election campaign in an ultra-marginal who spent only a third of their time on the campaign and thus only a third of their salary was attributed to the campaign. Unbelievable.
As for this being, as some LDs suggest on Twitter, a Tory conspiracy – au contraire – there is an informal ceasefire on expenses issues between Tories and LibDems – because they all know that both sides break the law in marginals. Neither wants to wash their dirty laundry in public. Well I do.
Guido: (a) You’re making the faulty assumption that all of the web costs should have appeared under the constituency expense limit for one general election; (b) You’re making the faulty assumption that the only hours spent on campaigning by a member of staff should have appeared under the constituency expense limit. As with the de-selected Lib Dem councillor and their colleague, you’re missing all the other places costs can be defrayed – and in fact have to be defrayed because that’s what the law requires because plenty of things a local party spends money on are legally defined as something other than constituency election expenses. Some is even defined as not being any sort of campaign expense; some as other sorts of campaign expense.
After reading the blog, as a taxpayer i seriously doubt you are being completely honest. The political classes have shown their true colours with all the false expenses claims and attempts to justify them.
What a crazy article, the author accuses a blogger of getting his facts wrong whilst attempting to spin his own story to defend the indefensible
Mr Huhne is a political liability for the party, he should be forced to stand down.
Go Guido!!
You are forgetting that Huhne has previous for creative electoral expenses, remember Crick catching him abusing expenses for electoral purposes when he was an MEP.
What about the missing invoices? The print-washing by the “Itchen Valley Print Society” which doesn’t actually exist except on paper – even the address is the Eastleigh Constituency office. All the work printing work was really done by Park Communications. Where are their invoices? That can not be explained away so easily.
You are becoming the Comical Ali to Huhne’s Hussein. My tanks are real and we have him in firmly in our sights. He won’t survive.
Excuse typos, my 3 year old is microwaving ice cubes.
Shame that Mr Staines appears not to understand even some of the most basic concepts with expenses. As Mark points out, there are a hell of a lot of faulty assumptions being made here. Now, I’m hardly a blogger of Mr Staines’ (inexplicably) renowned reputation, but even I would have bothered to check election law, or spoken to somebody who knew anything about it before bothering to take seriously these “complaints”.
Mark, I’d suggest you take some English lessons. ‘Some is’ what sort of example of Lib Dem education policy is that?
As for Huhne, if straw clutching was an Olympic sport you would be GB team captain.
“The print-washing by the “Itchen Valley Print Society” which doesn’t actually exist except on paper – even the address is the Eastleigh Constituency office.”
Well, I imagine it’s the same case as with my own election literature. We used a small company based out of the Farnham Liberal Club. It does exist even though it’s a “one man and his dog” size operation. Just because it rarely, if ever, has many non political customers doesn’t make it a non-existent business.
“My tanks are real and we have him in firmly in our sights. He won’t survive.”
Please get over yourself. As far as I can tell, the biggest coup you’ve ever scored in my memory is getting William Hague’s aid to resign. Hardly a testament to your abilities. I should also remind you that pride comes before a fall. Remember Sarah Teather?
It’s not just Guido, the Sunlight Centre seems to believe that things are remiss too.
Your defence, Mr Pack, appears to be that no rules were broken through very careful sophistry of what was charged to what account.
Bear in mind that we are no longer dealing with a nonentity MP any more, we are dealing with a Cabinet Minister – the level of scrutiny, and therefore the required level of probity, are far higher than in the “instant rebuttal” days of opposition.
I look forward to finding out the result of the Sunlight Centre’s inquiries in due course.
Mark et al, you’ve lost me on the technical details but I think the authorities will put more weight on the words of your LibDem colleagues who *do* think he exceeded his election expenses and, to boot, have a recording of the meeting it was discussed at. There’s certainly a prima facie case to answer here and for you to suggest otherwise is simply wishful thinking. As to your accusations of partiality against Guido, well that’s just the pot calling the kettle black.
Damian McBride, Peter Hain also resigned. This year it’ll be Huhne.
The Itchen Valley Print Society doesn’t actually appear to have a printing press.
Perhaps Huhne will go. However, if he does it will not be a scalp for Guido Fawkes. The speeding allegations were reported on without your influence and this expenses nonsense will come to nonsense – just like with Sarah Teather. Unless of course you have leaked documents from “whistleblowers” that you’ll refuse to produce so as not to reveal your “sources”.
Sorry, should be “will come to nothing”
“The Itchen Valley Print Society doesn’t actually appear to have a printing press.”
Well no, most people use printers these days. Incredibly, they’re actually rather small and almost anyone can operate them. What a fascinating age we live in.
P.S.
Have you tried ringing up and asking them?
Yes, George we gave The Itchen Valley Print Society a list of questions last year. They stonewalled. Now they can answer to the Electoral Commission.
Nope. Nothing to see here; for now. That’s because all eyes are on the caddish and ungentlemanly allegations of GatsoGate; the gift that keeps on giving.
@Guido Fawkes “The Itchen Valley Print Society doesn’t actually appear to have a printing press.”
You mean “Printing press” as William Caxton would have recognised it, do you? ….One of those things with a huge screw that you screw dopwn by employing teathered oxen walking around in a circle around the printing press do you mean?
Or do you mean a “printing press” as John Bull would recognise it? I was given a John Bull printing set by my parents in about 1963. I had great fun with it. Is that what you mean?
“Yes, George we gave The Itchen Valley Print Society a list of questions last year. They stonewalled. Now they can answer to the Electoral Commission.”
Fair enough. What about the other points people have brought up on here. I for one am eager to know exactly what you meant by a “printing press”.
Ah, but remember it is no longer ‘Guido Fawkes’, day-to-day control has passed over to Neo-Guido intern and coffee-maker ‘Tory Bear’ whose abilities are commensurate with a recent graduate working for his monthly season ticket.
So perhaps you should avoid giving these remarks the credence they crave by no longer referring to the organ-grinder Guido Fawkes, but to the cheeky monkey making them…
A mechanical device for printing leaflets on a large scale.
So that includes a digital/electronic/mechanical device called a “Risograph” which actually looks like a photo copier does it?
@George Potter, “We used a small company based out of the Farnham Liberal Club. It does exist even though it’s a “one man and his dog” size operation. Just because it rarely, if ever, has many non political customers doesn’t make it a non-existent business.”
I’m not sure you should be advertising this. It sounds like a device to hide the true expense of printing to me. The company involved is probably effectively donating services and, according to electoral law, these should be declared and the cash equivalent come off your spending total. It’s just as well you don’t have a LibDem MP or you might have been looking at another investigation.
as an amused neutral … does it ever cross your minds that this “our man is a pure as the driven snow” tribal chest beating right before inspector knacker of the yard lifts him/her for assorted crimes IS PRECISELY why the british public has nothing but contempt for all 3 main political parties. Corrupt politicians of all sides should be dealt with as harshly as the law allows as they have breached the trust of the people.
“A mechanical device for printing leaflets on a large scale.”
Well that’s where you’ve gone wrong then. Almost everybody who does printing nowadays uses an electronic device. I imagine that the Itchen Valley Print Society are no exception to this, which is why it is hardly surprising that they do not have a printing press.
The full colour glossy leaflets were printed by Park Communications. On proper printing presses. The invoices came from the Itchen Valley Print Society. We’ll leave the Electoral Commission to find out what Park Communications charged in reality and if that differed from what was charged by the Itchen Valley Print Society on their invoices. I think that will be very interesting.
@Guido Fawkes So Guido, you had your “centre” working on LibDem expenses for a year, and you don’t even realise that virtually every constituency LibDem party uses a digital/electronic (and probably about 2% mechanical) device called a “Risograph” (commonly referred to as a “Riso”) for a huge proportion of its printing. I’ll be delighted to show you one if you like. It’s basically a photocopier. You lay the original on the top and then press a button and loads of copies come out the side. Except, unlike a photocopier, it can print off tens of thousands of copies without breaking down (much).
“My tanks are real”
What kind of tanks are they? Water tanks? Fuel tanks?
Paul, the printing wasn’t done on a riso. It was done by Park Communications. Are crack investigative team discovered this by looking at the leaflets which said at the bottom who had printed them – Park Communications. Yet the invoices came from the Itchen Valley Print Society.
Why would the Itchen Valley Print Society put the name of Park Communications on the leaflets if they printed them on a Riso?
@Guido Fawkes “The full colour glossy leaflets were printed by Park Communications. On proper printing presses. The invoices came from the Itchen Valley Print Society. We’ll leave the Electoral Commission to find out what Park Communications charged in reality and if that differed from what was charged by the Itchen Valley Print Society on their invoices. I think that will be very interesting.”
That’s it. Keep you’re eye on the big picture.
Our crack … tsk tsk
@Guido Fawkes “Paul, the printing wasn’t done on a riso. It was done by Park Communications. Are crack investigative team discovered this by looking at the leaflets which said at the bottom who had printed them – Park Communications. Yet the invoices came from the Itchen Valley Print Society.
Why would the Itchen Valley Print Society put the name of Park Communications on the leaflets if they printed them on a Riso?”
A real smoking gun. Well done!
Isn’t this all rather boring? No one is that interested…
Ex- hedgefunder Paul Staines posing as Guido Fawkes, gave the game away in a posting on LD Voice earlier this week when he said:
I JUST WANT HUHNNE OUT; AND CABLE…………..”
So that is what passes on his site for disinterested investigative journalism!
Decide to blacken LDs whenever possible, then keep the story going by continuous repetition of what has already been speculated in the right wing press.
I suppose “digging ” for stuff on Chris Huhne, Vince, David Laws,and others is even more ignoble a means of earning a living than hedgefunding; and if you throw in the chauvinistic “tottywatch” it does rival the lowest tabloids.
Still, I remember what happened to Guy Fawkes,and with luck someone will one day find a blemish in Staines career. No one is without sin, so it might be worth “digging”
Well. I’ve really learned something today.
Ice cubes in a microwave.
Kept Quango Jnr happy all morning.
@Elizabeth,
It is pointless attacking Staines, he is not responsible for the mess that Huhne has found himself in, and as far as I am aware Staines has never presented himself as some paragon of virtue, whereas Mr Huhne was unfaithful to his ex-wife, poor accountancy methods whilst a MEP, trouble with his memory when it comes to driving and yet you will ignore these stains on Mr Huhne and attack the messenger.
I remember when the party used to have the high ground, now it is infested with people like Huhne and his group of apologists.
@elizabeth – to say Guido ( who is clearly wrong in this case) has it in for LDs is bonkers. he hates all polticians and has gone after them from all parties.
and what on earth has his having worked for a hedge funds got to do with it? anyway what is wrong with hedge funds?
@Guido – headed paper (one lot) printed by one printer – then letters over-printed (three different ones) by a laser in house is standard practice.
@Simon – I think Guido, catholic libertarian that he is (and contradiction that that is), probably does have it in for Lib Dems more than Tories, particularly as it is usually Harry Cole now.
Bill Q: Was quite pleased with that bit of naughtiness from Ms Fawkes. It was a scientific experiment. Fortunately we don’t have any pets that she can microwave.
Yes terrible people Hedgies. Like Paul Marshall, Chairman of Marshall Wace LLP, and one of the biggest donors to the LibDems.
When did I ever claim to be disinterested?
“Are crack investigative team discovered this…”
Yet another egregious grammatical solecism which is the ‘DNA Fingerprint’ of the Neo-Guido.
Say what you like about Paul Staines, at least he as a passable grasp of English sentence construction.
Dear Gordon,
I refer you to the reply given in Arkell vs. Pressdram (1971).
All best,
“The Neo-Guido”
You know you can big money if you think Huhne is going to last until June 1. http://bit.ly/huhne2go
As this discussion proves Guido is incapable of not labouring a point into an inconsequential conclusion.
So I’d like to address this one quote in the hope of bring it back to the important issue that the law on election expenses is far from perfect and requires reform:
“As for this being, as some LDs suggest on Twitter, a Tory conspiracy – au contraire – there is an informal ceasefire on expenses issues between Tories and LibDems – because they all know that both sides break the law in marginals. Neither wants to wash their dirty laundry in public. Well I do.”
This is illuminating, very illuminating.
First, saying there is ‘an informal ceasefire’ is an admission of the existence of partisan motives, so whether he knows of a tory conspiracy has no bearing on whether or not there is one. Guido’s position and level of intelligence suggests it is more than likely he is unwittingly involved.
Second, it is biased in the extreme to say there is guilt across the political spectrum and then dig into only one part of it – particularly considering his connections suggest better access to another part of it.
Third, Guido’s biased actions coincide with a series of partisan attacks on the same individual from those inter-connected parts of his food chain, and all of which follow on from Huhne’s more assertive stance in cabinet, which Huhne’s opponents have already argued was a breach of the terms of ceasefire.
…means, motive, opportunity and an intended victim make for a crime scene. Whether or not there was a conscious and pre-planned conspiracy this is obviously a concerted effort to get some payback against a man who holds a significant position.
But if Guido actually wishes to wash parliament’s ‘dirty laundry’ (predestined to return to your roots, Mr Staines?) and since he mentioned he is both aware of additional examples of breaches and actively willing to name more names, then it is incumbent upon him to do so, or be accused of involvement in a cover-up – I hope he has already passed the details along to the relevant authority, otherwise he will have demonstrated he is a self-promoter first and foremost and any concern for the public interest is of secondary priority and then only where it suits him.
So I’d like to put him to the test and ask, what is this other information and what has been done with it?
We wouldn’t want to leave piles of linen to grow mouldy, dirty or not, now would we? Though at this rate we should expect Guido to be still scrubbing the final expenses return from the 2010 GE in 4010!
“Crick catching him abusing expenses for electoral purposes when he was an MEP.”
Ah yes, the tabloid newspaper that included an article funded by the European Parliament to promote Chris Huhne’s work as an MEP which a Tory MEP claimed was being delivered during the General Election to help Chris get elected as MP for Eastleigh despite the fact that (a) it wasn’t delivered during the General Election campaign, (b) was delivered throughout huge swathes of the South East not just one constituency something which the Tory MEP knew full well as he got it through his letterbox whilst living in Romsey not Eastleigh constituency, and (c) didn’t actually breach any rules.
“The Itchen Valley Print Society doesn’t actually appear to have a printing press”
I can’t answer for the situation now, but it certainly did when it was set up as I helped to run it and the risograph sat in the corner of the office. Print societies are purely there as a matter of convenience as it makes it easier for the print supplies and subsequent invoicing for the printing done to be done through a separate bank account to the local party (although the accounts for the print society are usually included in the local party accounts).
“the printing wasn’t done on a riso. It was done by Park Communications”
http://www.glossaryofmarketing.com/definition/print-farming.html
@Curious – you seem to believe that Guido and the Sunlight Centre are not related. How quaint!
Glad to see some sanity breaking out in relation to Chris Huhne and Conservative media claims not held immediately as tablets of stone and used to break his career.
Hopefully it is not just down to the Obama and Cameron PR media feast; and sensible and calm oversight of any alleged breaking of rules can be considered in due course.
Dear Anders, I hope the HMRC don’t find out about your little “convenient” accounting scheme
“Print societies are purely there as a matter of convenience as it makes it easier for the print supplies and subsequent invoicing for the printing done to be done through a separate bank account to the local party (although the accounts for the print society are usually included in the local party accounts”
They don’t like that kind of thing at all out here in the real world
It seems that the Electoral Commission has rejected this complaint .Is any one person or organisation in charge of trying to destroy the Liberal Democrats ?
@RR
To answer your question ” Is any one person or organisation in charge of trying to destroy the Liberal Democrats ?”
Yes,
Chris Hunhe
Poor old repeat drink driver Paul ‘Guido’ Staines.
Maybe a bit more research and a bit less getting behind the wheel after a skinful is in order.
libertarian
Posted 27th May 2011 at 8:46 pm | Permalink
@RR
To answer your question ” Is any one person or organisation in charge of trying to destroy the Liberal Democrats ?” Yes, Chris Hunhe
Is any one person or organisation in charge of trying to destroy the Liberal Democrats ? I think Conservatives like you Libertarian are doing their best to undermine and wreck Huhne on whatever slender grounds you can find. And to bring the Liberal Democrats into disrepute with a large amount of its potential voters.
PR and political strategy and spin with one goal – Conservative rule by hook or by crook.
libertarian: “They don’t like that kind of thing at all out here in the real world”.
Well they should. Having a separate Printing Society means that the Agent will get an invoice for the printing, and submit the invoice or receipt with the expense return. If the same volunteers were doing the same printing as part of the Local Party, under election law the Agent need only show it as a “Notional Expense” without needing to supply a receipt, which would make it harder for people to see how the costs were calculated.
Not that anyone “out in the real world” ever looks at expense returns (though they could); that’s a peculiar pastime of agents and perhaps the occasional journalist.
The current law on election expenses makes the Dangerous Dogs act seem fantastically sensible in comparison.
Dangerous dogs? Remember Rinka! 🙁
Anyone is perfectly entitled to challenge someone’s election expenses (btw the candidate just signs something to say that he/she believes them to be a correct record, so the agent is the real responsible party) – but it would help if such ‘challenges’ were not reported with outlandish publicity till they had been dealt with one way or another.
I am still scratching my head as to why Zac Goldsmith’s election was not required to have a re-run.