Oh dear. Not only have the Liberal Democrats only won eight seats so far compared to the 56 taken in 2010, many candidates face losing their deposit.
If a candidate fails to win five per cent of the vote in their desired constituency then they are subject to a £500 fine. Unfortunately the Liberal Democrats have had many candidates do exactly that. So much so that the Twitter account LibDem Deposits has been set up just to keep a tally of their fines:
It started off modestly:
Then spiralled:
The account is now reporting that the current total of fines is an enormous £157,000. This would mean that out of the 631 Liberal Democrat candidates that ran 314 failed to get five per cent of the vote:
Steerpike
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