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:
Going to be honest, we didn't think we'd be *quite* this busy tonight.
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:
In the 2010 election the party did not lose any deposits.
Update: The number of Lib Dems who need to return their deposit has increased to a whopping 335. That means the total bill for the party is £167,500. Given that the party received £234,000 in the first month of the campaign, they are at least breaking even.
Marge Simpson is dead. But does anyone care? I’ve written loads of pieces over the years about the genius of The Simpsons – how extraordinarily prescient it is (most famously when, in 2000, it predicted a Trump presidency), how delightful the subplots are, how it works on so many levels – but I’m now beginning
Steerpike
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