Welsh National Assembly - What did it cost

Rhodri Morgan, Leader of the Welsh Assembly preferred to go play golf then attend the Normandy Landing Commemorations. Some Leader.

Some of us would much have preferred it if there had never been a Welsh Assembly and the fact that the vote was rigged is a story for another day. But helping pay huge salaries for the like of NHS queue jumping Rodri Morgan makes me vomit.

Moving on, here are the figures for how much each political party spent on campaigning for the National Assembly elections in May.

The Labour Parties figures are an estimate because they exceeded the £250,000 limit which means they get until November to release their final spend.

What Assembly poll parties spent

1. Labour £250,000-plus

2. Conservative Party £245,973

3. Plaid Cymru £245,475

4. Welsh Liberal Democrat £239,799

5. UK Independence Party £152,367

6. Green Party £28,082

7. British National Party £22,880

8. Communist Party of Great Britain £8,930

9. English Democrats £4,360

10. Socialist Labour £2,561

11. Socialist Equality Party £2,300

12. Christian Peoples Alliance £1,805

13. Christian Party Proclaiming Christ’s Lordship £1,629

14. Respect The Unity Coalition £1,159

15. Socialist Alternative £550

16. Co-operative Party £178

17. New Millennium Bean Party £171

Some other interesting figures, are those released by third parties who really should have no right to spend their members money on political parties not supported by their memberships.

Three so-called third parties – defined as organisations that campaign at election time for or against a party, candidate or policy – also had details of their election expenditure published yesterday.

The trade unions Amicus and Unison submitted returns showing they spent £50 and £7,009 respectively.

The campaign group Unite Against Fascism spent £7,051.

Although Amicus distributed 12,000 special booklets to its members in marginal constituencies, together with an unspecified number of DVDs, urging them to vote Labour, the cost of doing so does not have to be declared.

So value for money, value for truth, value for honesty. Then it must be the British National Party. The only real choice for your children's future.

Update. I am grateful to West Country Patriot for the following:

Another useful indicator of performance is the cost per vote factor. In other words how much did any given party have to spend to win a vote – being, that party’s total election expenditure divided by the number of votes won. The figures stack up as:-

• £0.54 BNP (£22,880 for 42,197 votes).

• £0.83 Greens (£28,082 for 33,803 votes).

• £0.87 Labour (£250,000 for 288,954 votes).

• £1.18 Cons (£245,973 for 209,153 votes).

• £1.20 Plaid (£245,475 for 204,757 votes).

• £2.09 Lib-Dems (£239,799 for 114,500 votes).

• £3.96 UKIP (£152,367 for 38,490 votes).

Tags: British National Party, BNP, Welsh Assembly, Amicus, uaf