The fundraising operation was another huge success of the campaign. ConservativeHome understands that the party raised £2m to £5m more than it could legally spend; putting it in a good place for a second election if one became necessary.
Treasurer Michael Spencer, Stanley Fink, Andrew Feldman, Howard Leigh, Ian McIsaac and Olivia Bloomfield also successfully diversified the funding base and the party is confident it could flourish in a regime where a £50,000 cap was imposed. There were 35,000 different donations to central funds in the last year. 306 people gave £5,000 or more. None gave more than £1m. Despite the Left's obsession with Michael Ashcroft, his contribution to party funds has been on a long-term declining curve; standing now at no more than 2% of total funds (although his executive contribution to the efficacy of the ground war is priceless). The party's overall debts have been reduced from £20m to about £3m because of a combination of one off asset sales and revenue raising.
The Tories are now hugely better placed in financial terms than the heavily-indebted Labour Party. Questions, however, have to be asked about expenditure. £500,000 was spent (incredibly) on newspaper ads in 2008 that were designed to recruit internet-based supporters. Another half-a-million was spent on a much-mocked viral campaign - the so-called 'tosser' campaign - to encourage less consumer borrowing. In recent months £500,000 was wasted on a cinema campaign that was vetoed by leading donors. More generally, overall priorities have been questionable. Huge sums have been unimaginatively spent on billboards when the ground war was often denied funds and the external relations department - which could have built online armies of third party friends - was shut down at the end of 2008.
