An axed LibDem candidate’s crowd funder to sue his own party for “harassment” over being deselected has raised just £450 of its £50,000 target – despite restarting the fundraiser in January after failing to meet its target the first time.

David Campanale, a former BBC journalist who was sacked as the candidate for Sutton and Cheam in November – allegedly “because of his Christian values” and former membership of the Christian People’s Alliance – is now trying to take on his former colleagues in the court. Colleagues who, according to the donation page, are “a mob of intolerant, illiberal culture war activists“. That should have been fairly obvious before joining the LibDems…