Apologies on the blogging front. Election.ie has been a little quiet. Yoyoing between bouts of panic buying gouge-happy stuff for burning and combining the odd reminents left in my press into new meal concoctions. Hello meat stuff with goopy onion tapenade. Darina, how are ya?
On a night where the rebellion against Brown looks well and truly alive, it is interesting to see the financial disclosures of spending in European Elections by UK political parties.
The Electoral Commission released figures yesterday showing just over £9 million was spent by UK political parties for campaigning for the Euros. Some 80% of the amount was spent by the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and United Kingdom Ind Party.
Breakdown of the spending by the parties:
| Political party | 2004 spending | 2009 spending |
| British National Party | £228,813 | £282,843 |
| Conservative Party | £3,130,265 | £2,482,536 |
| The Green Party | £404,057 | £369,324 |
| Jury Team | Did not contest | £344,522 |
| The Labour Party | £1,707,224 | £2,302,244 |
| Liberal Democrats | £1,188,861 | £1,180,884 |
| United Kingdom Independence Party | £2,361,754 | £1,270,855 |
| Parties spending under £250,000 | £579,392 | £794,496 |
| Spending by all parties | £9,600,366 | £9,027,704 |
(Table snipped)
Over Christmas, Suzy linked to the SIPO report to the Ceann Comhairle on spending by Irish political parties for their European campaigns. Very interesting reading there!
