Recently Heat Street asked if the police probe into the Conservatives’ 2015 general election spending might mean Theresa May’s honeymoon period as our new prime minister would be shorter than she’d hoped.
If that turns out to be the case, Mrs May will have done nothing to help herself: it transpires she has recently appointed Stephen Parkinson as one of her special advisers.
Parkinson was among several Tory activists who stayed at the Royal Harbour Hotel in Ramsgate, Kent during the South Thanet election campaign, which was contested by ex-Ukip leader Nigel Farage and won by Tory MP Craig Mackinlay.
Of the various election cases now being considered by police, this is the best known.
During the campaign, Tory party officials and activists clocked up a bill of £14,213.18 staying at the Royal Harbour Hotel.
Yet this expenditure was not declared on Mackinlay’s spending returns, which were limited to £15,016.
Instead, the hotel bill was declared on the party’s national spending returns.
This triggered a complaint in January to Kent Police from retired Met Police officer Michael Barnbrook.
Will be submitting an allegationof possible electoral fraud by the Tories in relation to election of Craig Mackinlay as MP for Thanet South.
— Michael Barnbrook (@Sleazebuster) January 22, 2016
According to the Tories’ local expense return in South Thanet, they spent a total of £14,837 on Mackinlay’s campaign – putting them inside the legal limit by £179.
However, if you include the Royal Harbour Hotel bill as well then the total amount spent on getting Mackinlay into the House of Commons comes to £29,050 – almost double the legal limit.
In January Channel 4 News political correspondent Michael Crick, who has led the investigation into Tory expenses, wrote on his blog:
“Theresa May’s then special adviser Stephen Parkinson told me he spent 5-6 nights at the [Royal Harbour] hotel while he was helping in Thanet South in a ‘voluntary capacity’, though the Conservatives paid his hotel bills. He wouldn’t say whether he had used the hotel as a base from which to campaign in other seats in the area.”
The outcome of this inquiry could be hugely damaging for the Tories and it is clear they are worried by it. If they are found to have broken the law they could end up with heavy fines and may possibly have to re-run elections in tarnished constituencies.
Stephen Parkinson having stayed at the hotel at the centre of the South Thanet probe seems to make it more, not less, likely that Theresa May could be dragged into any future escalation of the police’s inquiry.
It is important to add that there is no suggestion that Parkinson knew how the Tories were planning to register these expenses.
A Conservative Party spokesman said: “All spending has been correctly recorded in accordance with the law.”
