The Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, commonly known as PPERA, created the Electoral Commission and introduce a major new set of regulations for political party finance.
The sloppy (and regrettably dominant) media coverage of Cambridge Analytica has been of the form “it worked for Trump, it worked for Brexit so their clever big data targeting is powerful”. … Read the full post »
Ukip has already been in the news for being investigated by European authorities of allegations of abuse of European funding for electioneering. Now the Electoral Commission is looking at the funds too. … Read the full post »
The London County Court has rejected the Labour Party’s appeal against being fined for failing to keep to election law. … Read the full post »
The Electoral Commission is now investigating the Conservatives over allegations the Tories fiddled their expense return in South Thanet by excluding hotel bills for staff and the like. … Read the full post »
Constituency expense limits used to be a key part of UK election finance regulation, but they are now widely sidestepped and no-one is interested in fixing the rules. … Read the full post »
Edition #59 of Liberal Democrat Newswire came out earlier in the week, looking at the party’s evolving tax and spend plans for the next Parliament, what new polling says about the party’s strategy, record fundraising by the Lib Dems and more. … Read the full post »
Fail to understand what happened in 1997 and why and you not only fail to understand British political campaigning but also, closer to home, fail to understand the roots of more recent events involving Chris Rennard. … Read the full post »
Transparency has failed. That is the lesson from the last decade of political party funding reform. … Read the full post »
Perhaps the most notable Internet innovation during the 2001 general election was the ability to punch the Deputy Prime Minister from the safety of your armchair. … Read the full post »
Six years on from receiving a recommendation from the Electoral Commission that existing legal powers should be used to clarify how the rules regarding election imprints apply to internet campaigning, the Government has still failed to act. … Read the full post »