How much did your vote cost?
As expense returns are published for the Somerton & Frome by-election, we take a look at the the odd way spending limits at elections are set and who is spending the big bucks to buy your vote....
Somerset Confidential® special SC 27
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How much did your vote cost?
By elections are very much in the news. The big headline of course, is that Labour won two previously safe Conservative seats in Mid Bedfordshire and Tamworth. Yet while by-election attention was rightly elsewhere, the expenditure by the various candidates in the Somerton & Frome by election was quietly being published.
Getting elected to Parliament is not a simple business. Not these days anyway. Putting your name forward is one thing, but how to get in touch with the voters? How to reach them and persuade them of your virtues?
Fifty years ago the answer would have been leaflets and loots of door knocking. That still happens and candidates are always keen to tell you about that bit.
But it also comes down to spending money. After all even leaflets costs money. But today there is so much more. There are posters for instance, to go in the windows of any of your supporters who are willing and signs to go in fields and shop fronts.
And more still.
There is social media spend too. Getting your message out on Facebook or Twitter and using the dark arts of AI to make sure you have targeted the demographics that you need.
We have, as yet, a long way to go before we reach the sort of oligarchy that runs the US. A democracy it may be in principle but increasingly, to stand a chance of election you need to be rich or from a moneyed section of society. Because big spending dominate American politics.
to stand a chance of election you need to be rich or from a moneyed section of society
Being British we are either more reserved or more naïve – you choose.
Here we have strict limits on what a candidate can spend during a General Election. The amount is calculated by taking a fixed base sum and adding to it so many pence per voter in the electorate. And just like stocks and shares, those numbers can fall as easily as they can rise.
However at least the amounts are modest. Not the sort of multi million campaigns that would pass muster in the US. And those modest limits give something of a level playing field on which smaller parties and individuals can compete.
Strict limits
For instance in Somerton and Frome constituency, for the last three General Elections the spending limits have been:
2015: £16,195
2017: £16,115
2019: £16,148