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The Electoral Commission has today fined the Conservative party about two-thirds of the amount George Osborne gets for his after dinner speeches after they broke spending rules in the 2015 election.
The Commission cited “numerous failures” in reporting spending on three by-elections in 2014 and the 2015 General Election, which the Tories have definitely filed under “not worth it”.
The £70,000 fine is sure to change the ways of a party whose previous Chancellor is currently earning £100,000 on the after dinner circuit.
“Well, that is one serious slap on the wrists,” said a spokesperson for the party that raised £1.36m in the run-up to the 2015 election.
“If anything is going to make us change our ways when it comes to how we spend our money, it’s being fined 5% of the war chest we accumulated to win those elections.
“I mean, the fact that we can raise that amount with five minutes of phone calls to our major donors doesn’t mean we’re not taking it seriously.
“Honestly, we look back now, and we all agree that it would have been much better to stick to the rules, lose the general election, and be sat here seventy-grand better off.
“Please ignore the people sniggering everywhere; they’re not with me.”
