MP investigated over election expenses

According to a report by the BBC, Craig Mackinlay, the MP for South Thanet, is being investigated over allegations of overspending in the 2015 general election campaign.

The news comes as seventeen police forces across England are looking into whether some MPs' agents should have filed costs associated with battle bus visits to their constituencies in their local expenses.

Karl McCartney, whose bid to retain his Lincoln seat is also being probed, has claimed that a draft report into the controversy has been withheld by Tory central office.

In a statement McCartney said: "The Conservative Party advised us that the so-called campaign 'battle buses' were, as at previous general elections and in keeping with the practice of both the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats, a national campaign expense.

"This meant that they were not to be declared in our own election expenses."

The party said it was campaigning ‘across the country for the return of a Conservative government’ and, as a result, associated costs were regarded as national not local expenditure.

An email leaked to Sky News showed a message from McCartney addressed to the party chairman, Patrick McLoughlin, which warned that MPs felt they had been ‘left to fend for themselves’.