Election Expenses - C4 report

[LazyGun]

So, Zac Goldsmith - Cheat, Creative Accountant, or Innocent Party ,falsely maligned and hounded by the invidious press?

http://link.brightcov...01?bctid=115507914001

[Gromit]

It is clear, he cheated by spending more than is allowable and then submitting invoices that did not bear any relation to the true money spent.

In his defence, £12,000 must be a tiny amount for a multimillionaire. He is probably not used to budgeting so small.

[Gromit]

// For example, his team spent £2,800 on 600 signs, but said only £262 was spent on them during the campaign period. A quarter of the costs of the signs – some £700 – was moved from Mr Goldsmith's own personal parliamentary campaign on to the expenses of local Tory candidates in the Richmond Borough Council election, which took place on the same day – even though they all appear to bear his face and name.
The Goldsmith team ordered 272,000 posters and leaflets, costing more than £14,000 – enough by itself to take him over his spending limit. The campaign said he did not use 62,000 of them, cutting his spending declaration by more than £2,500.

One invoice gave the full cost of the 200 jackets as £2,168. But the figure on the return was reduced by 90 per cent to just £170 on the grounds that not all of them were used. //

[modeller]

It is irrelevant whether they were used the printer had to be paid and that was the money that was paid.

[jno]

I'm not sure about that, modeller: the money may have been spent but if the posters weren't used, was it spent *on the campaign*?

[Gromit]

jno

If it is legal, it is a con.

With printing, the more you have printed, the lower the unit cost per item.
If you print 1000 posters that might cost £1000 but to print 500 posters, that might cost £900. So if you only used half of the 1000 posters you had printed and said the printing cost was £500, you are pulling a fast one.

[jno]

or driving a hard bargain. He could simply have used the undistributed posters to wallpaper his country house with; had he done so, I don't think they could have been ascribed to campaign expenses, whatever price he paid for them.

If he needs a smart lawyer he can contact me through AB.