Katy Balls Katy Balls

The electoral spending figures highlight the Tories’ social media problem

The Electoral Commission has released details of the different parties’ spending on the snap election and it doesn’t make pretty reading for the Conservatives. Not only did they manage to lose their majority in that disastrous election, they also managed to spend the most money of any party in the process.

The Tories spent a record £18.5million on their campaign, while Labour spent just over £11million and the Lib Dems around £6.8million. It’s already well documented that the Conservatives misallocated their resources and spent money in seats they wanted to win (and didn’t) when they should have been focussing on a defensive campaign in seats like Kensington, which they lost by a handful of votes. However, there is still data here that illuminates the current Conservative woes and that relates to social media.

The Tories spent £2.1million on Facebook advertising during snap election where Labour £577,000 and the Lib Dems £412,000.

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