That pound will buy you 0.42 voter at today's rates sir!

The total costs the various parties paid during the European Election campaign last year can now be found here.

The Conservatives paid 2,482,536 pounds to capture 4,198,394 votes UK wide; that works out as 1.69 voters for every pound spent)
Labour- £2,302,244 (1.03 voters for every pound spent)
SNP - £126,000 (2.54 votes for every £1 spent)
Plaid Cymru - £97,231 (1.3 votes for every £1 spent)

The Northern Irish figures are an eye-opener...

UUP/Conservatives- £196,952 (0.42 voters per pound spent)
DUP- £155,503 (0.56 voters per pound spent)
TUV- £91628 (0.72 voters per pound spent)
Sinn Fein- £129,765 (0.97 voters per pound spent)

Ok, diseconomies of scale might explain part of the difference in comparison with the UK-wide picture but that still doesn’t account for the massive discrepancy with the SNP and Plaid Cymru averages.

What can we/they do different next time to get a much better "return" on the "investment"?


The Scottish and Welsh figures are analyed in more depth here and here.