On the Buses

Channel 4 on their reporting about the current expenses scandal suggest there were at least five Buses involved in running the troops about

.However looking at the various photos of the Battlebus vehicles we have at least six, possibly seven full sized coaches photographed and Two Midi sized coach which we have a front or rear photograph showing the number plate in a photograph that has been shipped round social media

However the Third bus along on the top row of this picture may not be a centrally hired bus, although superficially it is the same colour, It does not have the Battlebus 2015 branding, and all decoration on other photographs of the same vehicle show all the party labeling to be of a purely temporary and local looking nature. It is unlikely that this bus is part of the Centrally funded campaign.

The Fourth Bus along on the top row is the Midi Coach which appears to have been deployed to the North  We know that there was more than one Midi Coach around as we have this from Channel 4 news where we appear to have two of them in the same picture.

 Looking at the national expenses here is the  receipt for Two of the Buses here http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/Api/Spending/Invoices/10294

These two Buses appear to be the Midlands and South west BattleBus vehicles, at £400 per day

 There's then a second receipt for a small "Midi Coach" which presumably is the one in photographs operating in the North East http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/Api/Spending/Invoices/10302

After that we get a separate stream of payments to another company. these appear to be phased payments over the length of a contract, but one of the payments leads to a detailed invoice that covers the whole of the payments, http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/Api/Spending/Invoices/10071 now there's a lot of bits in here to look at in there

Firstly there are three executive coaches, Those presumably were used as transport for the Prime minister and the media and so Normally wouldn't be included however at least one of these expensive buses was used to ship activists to the Thanet election as is evidenced by  a selection of photographs available from the activists tagged ( and I'm paraphrasing here) "oh wow we're on the Prime Ministers Bus" here's an example of a picture from that trip with a group of activists satin "the prime Ministers cabinet room" on the bus.

The coach Wrapping (the conservative logos, messages and colouring) is billed on there for the Three coaches, at £23,400 plus £1,920 to put the coach back to its original colours later.  There are also bills of around £10,000 for supplying drivers and over  £4,000 for food and drink for the three coaches

There are four other coaches mentioned on there,  but in total they are hired for only £3,375 and so at that price they can only have been hired for a couple of days each.

All of this leaves us with questions

Firstly as we have six, possibly seven full sized coaches and two midi sized coaches and only seem to be able to find bills for decorating three, who paid for the wrapping on the other five vehicles?if it costs the same as the three that are declared thats £40,000 missing from the expenses. Were the  four buses that were that appear to have been only hired for two days each painted up in full Livery for those two days? If not there are several other Battlebuses still to be found


and secondly, as the coach sent out to Thanet on at least one occasion was one of the more expensive luxury coaches, has the full cost of using it been considered when examining the local campaign expenses?