According to a co-conspirator at the Electoral Commission, Shaun McNally the CEO is stepping down after just over a year in post. Staff have been told it is for “personal and professional reasons”.

Presumably the professional reason is that a massive data hack resulted in email records, control systems, and copies of the electoral registers being stolen during his watch. Good to see a head roll for a monumental failure…

The Labour Party received more funding than the Conservatives in Q2 of 2023 – even with CCHQ bringing in £5,000,000 from Frank Hester. Labour raked in £10,510,260, 4% more than the Conservatives on £10,510,260. However, it isn’t all bad for CCHQ, excluding public funds (which disproportionately benefit the opposition), the Tories retain their top spot by some £2,000,000. Labour’s biggest donors were Lord Sainsbury (£3,000,000) and Gary Lubner (£2,200,000) whilst the Tories also got a million pound boost from hedge fund boss Alan Howard. No sign of Dale Vince, this quarter.

The overall total of political donations this quarter was £24,438,482. Almost double the figure from the same period last year. We’re entering an election year…

The Electoral Commission has published the latest accounts for the UK’s main political parties in the year ending December 2022. Labour were far out ahead, raking in £47,171,000 compared to the Tories’ £30,682,000. The Tories made a near £2.3 million loss, spending £33,062,000. Admittedly Rishi never pledged to cut the deficit within the party…

Labour’s books are looking much healthier than the previous year – Sir Keir’s prawn cocktail offensive with big business must be paying off. In 2021 they made a £5 million loss, in large part thanks to plummeting membership numbers. For 2022 their outgoings were a whopping £44,450,000, though that still puts them roughly £2.7 million in the green for the year. The LibDems and the SNP also made losses, with the LibDems losing £753,788, and the Nationalists losing roughly £800,000. That’s a lot of motorhomes.

The Electoral Commission (EC) has revealed it was the victim of a “complex cyber-attack” first identified in October 2022, with unidentified hackers gaining access to private servers holding email records, control systems, and copies of the electoral registers. The EC admit this includes the names and addresses of those registered to vote between 2014 and 2022, along with the Commission’s internal email database …

Electoral Commission Chief Executive Shaun McNally apologised for the breach this afternoon, admitting the EC didn’t have “sufficient protections” in place at the time. Worrying to say the least…

“The UK’s democratic process is significantly dispersed and key aspects of it remain based on paper documentation and counting. This means it would be very hard to use a cyber-attack to influence the process. Nevertheless, the successful attack on the Electoral Commission highlights that organisations involved in elections remain a target, and need to remain vigilant to the risks to processes around our elections.

“We regret that sufficient protections were not in place to prevent this cyber-attack. Since identifying it we have taken significant steps, with the support of specialists, to improve the security, resilience, and reliability of our IT systems.”

The Commission say they’ve since upgraded their IT systems and security measures. You’d hope so – this sort of thing is becoming more common…

The Conservatives have reclaimed the top spot in the Electoral Commission’s latest party donor league tables, raking in £12,277,478 in the first quarter of 2023. This marks a stonking increase on their total of £4.7 million from Q4 of 2022. Labour, meanwhile, received £5,893,841. The Tories more than doubled this…

The Conservatives donor boon comes courtesy of Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Mansour, who donated £5 million to help “very capable Prime Minister” Rishi win a full term. Graham Edwards and Amit Lohia also each gave £2 million. The figures will come as welcome relief to cost-cutting CCHQ, as the party took out a £2,000,000 line of credit in December. Labour’s figures won’t be so reassuring for the party and their prawn cocktail offensive. 62% of their donations came from trade unions and public funds…

While Labour’s recent donor boon has been put to good use, what with Rachel Reeves clocking up so many expensive air miles, it seems they were unprepared for the tedious admin that comes with actually running and financing a political party. The Electoral Commission (EC) has just whacked them with three fines of £200 each for repeated late reporting of donations.

The Commission published their latest investigative findings this morning, revealing they’d also found the Tories had failed to “report two donations by due date“, while the Greens and Irish Republican Socialists had also committed minor breaches. Only Labour were hit with fines – the rest were let off…

Louise Edwards, EC Director of Regulation and Digital Transformation, said:

“Where we find offences, we carefully consider the circumstances in deciding whether to impose a penalty, and if so, the level of that penalty. We take into account proportionality and a range of factors as set out in our Enforcement Policy before making our final decision. Publishing closed cases is an important part of delivering transparency in political finance in the UK.”

“In the case of the Labour Party, our investigations found seven offences related to the late reporting of donations from one of its quarterly financial reports, three of which have resulted in a sanction.”

The fines have since been paid. Enough to make one sceptical of Sir Keir’s promises about his party’s new found commitment to sound financial management…