£134,860 spent by Tory allies in 2010 election to try to scare us about a hung parliament

Remember this leaflet? They were delivered far and wide in the days running up to last year’s May General Election, under the name “The Young Britons’ Foundation”. Well, the Electoral Commission has now published their detailed expenses for the last election.

They spent £134,860 as follows:

Third Party Name	Types of payment
	Payments made
	England	Scotland	Wales	Northern Ireland	TOTAL UNITED KINGDOM
The Young Britons’ Foundation	113,044.00	11,350.00	7,218.00	3,248.00	134,860.00

The money was spent on full page colour adverts in The Sun and The Times plus 800,000 of those leaflets (above) printed in Swansea by DAS group.

Donations records were submitted to the Commission on 30th March 2011 for £45,000 and £9,999 from Healthgear Contracts, an unincorporated association of 90 College Street, Bedford, partner: one Rodney Dummer.

Interestingly, all the invoices were not made out to “Young Britons’ Foundation” but to Media Intelligence Partners of 81 Victoria Street, London SW1. The chief executive officer of Media Intelligence Partners is Nick Wood, who was Press Secretary and Media Director for Conservative Party leaders William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith.

Christian May, is an Account Executive at Media Intelligence Partners. Their website says he “used to be Director of Operations for the Young Britons’ Foundation and served the Conservative Party as Deputy National Chairman for Conservative Future”.

In May 2009, during its expenses revelations, the Telegraph reported that Tory MPs paid £66,000 of taxpayers money to Media Intelligence Partners for advice.

Eric Pickles recently addressed the Young Britons’ Foundation. As did Iain Duncan-Smith.

So, let’s recap. Just short of 135 grand was spent on expensive national newspaper full page colour adverts and 800,000 colour leaflets (most presumably distributed) saying a hung parliament “would strangle us”. And the money trail leads us to close allies of the Conservative party.

Mind you, if I had spent £135 grand trying to stop a hung parliament and then that is precisely what happened, despite all the full colour scare stories, I would now be feeling pretty bit sick. Wouldn’t you?

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