Today the Electoral Commission have released the campaign expenditure returns of the six political parties that spent £250,000 or more on campaigning in the General Election. While the Conservative’s £15,587,956 campaign bill could be argued to be money well spent given their majority win, Labour have a bit more explaining to do it when it comes to £12,087,340 they splashed on their failed campaign.
So, where exactly did the money go? Almost £600 went on chicken suits, while a grand total of £223,573 went to Miliband’s hot shot US Advisor David Axelrod’s company AKP&D Message and Media.
However, the bill that is of most interest to Mr S relates to Michael Sheehan. Back in March, Mr S revealed that ‘desperate to impress’ Miliband had hired the help of American public relations guru Michael Sheehan to prepare him for the big interviews and debates. Sheehan – who has worked closely with Barack Obama – helped Miliband to prepare for his interview with Jeremy Paxman where he declared: ‘Hell yes, I’m tough enough’.
Although Sheehan was known to charge up to £10,000 a day for his help, the Labour press office declined to comment on how much they were paying Sheehan at the time. Thankfully the Electoral Commission data now reveals all. The data shows a massive £184,609.67 went to Sheehan’s company Michael Sheehan Associates in the lead-up to the election:
Given the way things turned up, Mr S suspects Miliband could do worse than to consider asking for some money back.
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