BattleBus Constituencies part one

When we look at the current electoral expenses situation brought to public attention by Channel 4 news, we have to be aware of several things, different groups of people commenting on the situation have different standards as to how they decide which constituencies may be involved in mis-declaration of their expenses, Channel 4 have  started from the point  that an electoral expenses declaration is only illegal if the undeclared amount brings the total claim above the spending limit, and for this reason they have excluded constituencies where this isn’t the case, however I have worked from Where can we see a bus with activists in a constituency during the short campaign period. So undated photos of Bus activists in constituencies, no matter the effort people have made in getting them to me have to be excluded. (This is the case in both Gower and Brecon & Radnor which I’ve been sent several times)

So the constituencies on the following list aren’t necessarily places where electoral fraud has occurred, but are places where there at least a sign that something has happened that they bear further investigation.  There are two ways to get onto this list, firstly there can be a reported police investigation into the events in the constituency. secondly there can be Photos and tweets from Battlebus campaigners saying they were in the constituency as part of the campaign, campaigning for the candidate.

The next thing is there are Two (in a way three) different types of Battlebus Firstly you have the problematic Buses full of activists, shipped into the constituency to be boots on the ground in the parties door knocking, leaflet delivering ground war. These are the Buses that it is alleged to have been mis-declared to avoid campaign spending limits in constituencies.

The second type is the leaders Battlebus, this is properly part of the national campaign and so generally, If the Prime Minister is on the Bus, then it’s not a problem. However during this campaign that is not all it was used for, as I showed here 

The third type is the Special advisers bus,, now this is an interesting special case,  Were the  SPADs paid by their departments during this week or twos campaigning by their departments? If so then they should be declared as a donation of their time., and a bus full of 25 SPADs would add up to around £4000 a day, which would quickly put a dent in a local constituencies spending limit. 

So how did I come to put the constituency list together? (the Photos here and social media posts are examples, in most cases There are multiple examples from multiple sources although a few are fast disappearing). so days spent hunting through activists twitter feeds, campaign twitter feeds, MP's Facebook pages. result in the following.

Constituencies

Amber Valley

Reported as being Investigated by the Mirror, Photograph of Bus visiting constituency from https://www.flickr.com/photos/greg-smith/17330950435/in/photostream/ from 2 May 2015

 

Brighton Kemptown, Brighton Pavilion, Hove, Lewes

 This is reportedly the SpAd Bus which could be very expensive for the constituencies involved

Broxtowe

This constituency appears in the Mirror and here's a photograph of the Battlebus visiting and being supported by the Home Secretary 

Bury North  

 Mentioned In Mirror and here's a photograph

 

Camborne & Redruth
 Here's http://www.georgeeustice.org.uk/news/road-trip-2015 the candidates website from which here's the Picture

Cannock Chase 
Mentioned in the Mirror Picture of battlebus here 

Carlisle  
Reported by Channel 4 and here's a picture of one of the Buses on site

Continued in Part Two

On the Buses

Channel 4 on their reporting about the current expenses scandal suggest there were at least five Buses involved in running the troops about

.However looking at the various photos of the Battlebus vehicles we have at least six, possibly seven full sized coaches photographed and Two Midi sized coach which we have a front or rear photograph showing the number plate in a photograph that has been shipped round social media

However the Third bus along on the top row of this picture may not be a centrally hired bus, although superficially it is the same colour, It does not have the Battlebus 2015 branding, and all decoration on other photographs of the same vehicle show all the party labeling to be of a purely temporary and local looking nature. It is unlikely that this bus is part of the Centrally funded campaign.

The Fourth Bus along on the top row is the Midi Coach which appears to have been deployed to the North  We know that there was more than one Midi Coach around as we have this from Channel 4 news where we appear to have two of them in the same picture.

 Looking at the national expenses here is the  receipt for Two of the Buses here http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/Api/Spending/Invoices/10294

These two Buses appear to be the Midlands and South west BattleBus vehicles, at £400 per day

 There's then a second receipt for a small "Midi Coach" which presumably is the one in photographs operating in the North East http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/Api/Spending/Invoices/10302

After that we get a separate stream of payments to another company. these appear to be phased payments over the length of a contract, but one of the payments leads to a detailed invoice that covers the whole of the payments, http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/Api/Spending/Invoices/10071 now there's a lot of bits in here to look at in there

Firstly there are three executive coaches, Those presumably were used as transport for the Prime minister and the media and so Normally wouldn't be included however at least one of these expensive buses was used to ship activists to the Thanet election as is evidenced by  a selection of photographs available from the activists tagged ( and I'm paraphrasing here) "oh wow we're on the Prime Ministers Bus" here's an example of a picture from that trip with a group of activists satin "the prime Ministers cabinet room" on the bus.

The coach Wrapping (the conservative logos, messages and colouring) is billed on there for the Three coaches, at £23,400 plus £1,920 to put the coach back to its original colours later.  There are also bills of around £10,000 for supplying drivers and over  £4,000 for food and drink for the three coaches

There are four other coaches mentioned on there,  but in total they are hired for only £3,375 and so at that price they can only have been hired for a couple of days each.

All of this leaves us with questions

Firstly as we have six, possibly seven full sized coaches and two midi sized coaches and only seem to be able to find bills for decorating three, who paid for the wrapping on the other five vehicles?if it costs the same as the three that are declared thats £40,000 missing from the expenses. Were the  four buses that were that appear to have been only hired for two days each painted up in full Livery for those two days? If not there are several other Battlebuses still to be found


and secondly, as the coach sent out to Thanet on at least one occasion was one of the more expensive luxury coaches, has the full cost of using it been considered when examining the local campaign expenses?

David Cameron on the Buses

Just a quick post. A couple of days before the election, David Cameron traveled down to the South West to hit a few constituencies, press the flesh of the voter in the street, Kiss a few babies and generally do those things that people scrambling for votes do in the run up to an election. The South West being a region long in Liberal Democrats and hopefully ripe for plucking.

The South West Battlebus had been hard at work in the area providing activists to constituencies to knock on doors and hand out leaflets.

The prospective Prime Minister met up with the bus full of activists, You can see his own bus in the background, and at least one of them filmed it and threw it up on Social Media. Here's a copy  (I haven't linked to the original social media post, don't want a group of fools piling on to the individual who posted this)

Note the places Cameron talks about having visited, these are not places that we are interested in. The Cameron Battlebus is something that is rightly part of national expenses. The locations at the end however where this bus is going are interesting, this is campaigning for local candidates so should rightly be declared by them. If the expenses undeclared are added on and that takes the candidate over their limit then according to Election Law this is an "illegal practice" and could result in the Sitting MP being barred from holding public office.

More to come soon