They say in a statement:

The Electoral Commission has today announced that it has opened an investigation into allegations regarding the Conservative Party spending return at the 2015 UK Parliamentary General Election

The investigation opened by the Commission today focuses on whether the Conservative Party met their reporting obligations under the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act (PPERA) 2000, specifically:

• whether the spending reported by the party in its 2015 UKPGE campaign spending return, in relation to the Royal Harbour Hotel Ramsgate, was notnational campaign spending and therefore should not have been included in the party’s return;
• whether spending on the Premier Inn Margate was national campaign spending and therefore should have been included in the party’s 2015 UKPGE campaign spending return.

The Commission’s sanctioning powers are limited to a civil penalty of up to £20,000…

Labour’s defeated Newark candidate Michael Payne has called the police in to investigate the Tories’ apparent by-election overspend. Watch Michael Crick’s report and read Guido’s story from this morning to see what they will be looking at. Now to see if this actually goes anywhere…

Guido can shed some more light on how the Tories hid their by-election hotel bills in Newark. On 31 May 2014, over 350 young Tories boarded coaches and minibuses up to Newark for a day of campaigning. At the end of the day’s door-knocking, they needed something to eat and somewhere to stay. Paying for travel and hotels for that many people would rack up thousands in by-election expenses. So, the Tories ferried their activists to the Crowne Plaza hotel in Nottingham, outside of the constituency. There, Tory donors treated them to curry at an event named the “first annual RoadTrip dinner” – pictured above – where Rob Halfon and Eric Pickles gave speeches. After that they boozed at the Coco Lounge and NG1 bars, before returning to the hotel, where they made contributions to their room bills. The transport costs of ferrying the activists up to Newark and around Nottingham were apparently undeclared.

A source present says the meal and hotel were deliberately booked outside of the constituency, under the pretence of an “annual RoadTrip dinner”, to avoid appearing on the Newark by-election expenditure. They say this was by no means the only time this happened. A nifty little way of dodging the rules…

Michael Crick reckons he has enough to call in the cops on alleged Tory by-election overspends. Did the Tories break the rules with their hotel bills in Newark, and while fighting UKIP in Clacton and Rochester?

The Guardian reports that Israel’s most recent ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, returned to Jerusalem “after being repeatedly warned over security breaches at his residence in St John’s Wood”. Apparently “the breaches related to late night visits by individuals to his official home”. The Israeli media is rife with scandalous speculation.

News site Ynet reports lurid, unverified claims that married Taub

“brings men home without reporting them to the embassy’s security officer as required by security procedures”

Oy!

There are ever wilder rumours floating around elsewhere, though it’s perhaps worth noting that conspiracy theories of this type are nothing new. Not like the Guardian to go in for salacious rumour-mongering…

Corbynista MP Dawn Butler indulged us with the “new, kinder politics” at PMQs:

Cameron looks like a kid whose just done a poo said a friend. Yes it does feel like he's Sh***ing all over the working class doesn't it

— Dawn Butler MP✊🏾💙 (@DawnButlerBrent) January 13, 2016

Dawn would know all about “sh***ing all over the working class”.

Back in 2009, she was exposed in the expenses scandal for over-claiming £2,600 in rent for her constituency home.

She claimed claimed twice for the rent, deposit and charges relating to her second home.

Shamed Butler charged the taxpayer a whirlpool bath in a suite that cost £2,308.

She also claimed the full £23,000 second home allowance, despite her first home in Stratford being the same distance from Parliament.

Go on, Dawn, tell us more about “sh***ing all over the working class…”