Chapter 4 - Problem Solving
Problem Solving
How is election spending regulated in the UK?
As I had to slightly change my idea due to candidate expenditure and electoral law, I’d like to take this opportunity to talk about how the election spending is regulated in the UK and try and relate it back for the educational purposes as it actually doesn’t matter if you say you’ll do it for free because it goes against the budget anyway as they ask you how much did it cost to create as they ask about anything related to the campaign.
Regulated spending can cover a wide range of things, such as party political broadcasts to campaign leaflets. There is also a wide variety of costs involved. There are some notable spends which are excluded but however the parties must count how many rallies they have done, but don’t need to include the actual cost of annual conferences. Candidates and non-party campaigns have to include money spent on staff in their returns, but the actual party does not.
Image from: Institute For Government
Limits only apply to party spending during the 365 days before the day you go the polling station and vote; this is known as the “regulated period”. Each party can spend around £54,010 for each constituency that they contest. For the people wondering a constituency is, the full name is a “Parliamentary Constituency” is a geographical area that is represented in the House of Commons by an elected Member of Parliament. There are 650 constituencies across Britain which also have the same amount of people in each area to fill the House of Commons.
At the next General Election they have reduced the amounts of seats represented in the Commons, so now there will be 632 seats and will be able to spend just over £34millon collectively. The limits were increased by rising them to 80% to account for inflation since they were instituted in 2000; they changed these in November 2023. Since 2010 the government had a statutory duty to either raise these limits in line with inflation once the a parliament has lasted two years or to make a statement explaining the reasons why it is not doing what they said they were going to do.
Previously political parties were able to spent under £19millon at previous contested elections under the old limits. For parties that are only contesting a small number of constituencies, there is some flexibility involved; for example each party is allowed to spent just over £1.4million in England, regardless of the number of seats they contest. This simply allowed “The Women’s Equality Party” to spend just over £100,000 at the 2019 General Election, but only standing three candidates; even though the constituency limit was only £30,000 per seat. Even the similar flexibility is applied to the limits in Scotland and Wales, but not in Northern Ireland.
Retrospectively spending restrictions apply, even in the case of a quick snappy general election. This also means that the regulated period has already began before the date of the election is announced. At the last general election the period has already began on the 12th December 2018; but the next elections this period would have already began.
Image from: Institute For Government
How much can candidates spend while parliament is still sitting?
Individual candidates do spent money at elections, There are two periods of restrictions for candidate spending. One is known as a “long campaign” and the other is a “short campaign”. Candidates during these two periods is in addition to the party spending, but doesn’t actually count towards the party spending limits. The long campaign refers to the final few months of a full-length parliament; this period only begins once parliament has sat for about 55 months. Sometimes when a general election has been called before the 55 month point, this would be there is no long campaign, this was the case in both 2017 and 2019. For the next general election before January 2025, the long campaign would be starting before 18th July 2024, that is if parliament has not been dissolved already.
A limit on the candidate expenditure is usually introduced at the beginning of the long campaign, but does increase proportionately for each additional month that parliament sits. The maximum limit could be calculated as a proportion but that is only if parliament sat for a full 60 month period. The maximum limit is fixed sum of £40,220 plus an allowance per registered voter. It is about 8 pence in a borough (town/city) and 12 pence in county council seat.
This is means that in the current climate, parliament only would last a full five years; until the 17th December 2024 and then candidates would have spent around £46,000 in a borough seat and about £49,000 in the county council seat before parliament is dissolved. These limits are quite high for by-elections, where they fix the price at £180,050; this applies to the candidate spending.
Weekly Progress Tracker
I will be writing a diary entry every week and I will talk about what I have done each week and how it is going to relate to my Final Major Project.
Week Commencing ...
Monday 18th March 2024:
On the first week of Final Major Project I focused writing up my proposal and action plan for the eight weeks ahead. I took the time to think about what I am going to create which is a campaign video for the local Southport Conservatives and I want to be able to do it for the local elections on the 2nd May. To reiterate from my proposal is that I want to gather all of priority candidates together to talk about about their plan and of course there pledges that are going to set for the community. I want to be able to bring in my special guest which is the local Member of Parliament for Southport Damien Moore.
There is candidate expenditure and Electoral Law rules behind bringing candidates and the MP into filming for a college project even though it is for educational purposes only, I will need to look into the cost implications with the party and see what the best decision is for the party and of course me as I am filming, planning and directing everything. In the problem solving section I have looked into Electoral Law and candidate expenditure as it will link heavily back to my project.
Monday 25th March 2024:
On the second week, I focused on smashing out Chapter Two which is context; Talked about my project background and how I related it back to my project, I also written up an about me section which includes my history in the spotlight and of course I put in my personal statement which sums up a lot in a few paragraphs. I also completed a research plan which looks into anything relating to my project. I will look into the history of political broadcasts and then I will analyse 3 videos with one being which a opposition video the controversy of WhatsApp group chats and even how political parties sensor what you put on the internet.
Monday 1st April to Monday 8th April 2024
The third and forth week, I went through the research process and typing up my findings in accordance to relating it back to my project proposal.
I have also been in talks about with the Southport Conservatives over getting the video approved and having permission to actually film. We also had the to chance to discuss further steps on who was going to be filmed it and we decided it would hinder other peoples expenditure, so we have decided to do a campaign video on me as I am the selected Conservative Candidate in Kew Ward. As I came in really late to the political scene, we realised that it wouldn’t matter that we took a bit of money out of my pot. As candidate we are given about £1200.00 for our campaigns.
Monday 15th April to Monday 22nd April 2024
The sixth week I planned out my final major project by writing out a script which shows what I am going to say and gives me the information of any sort of shot types, angles and even movements. I also had to send the script off to the association to read through and approve such project as it is going to be a real one, so they had to read through and make sure there was no errors or any kind of problems with the script.
From planning and sending it off, it took them another week to approve it; so I can go ahead with the film making aspect and then edit it.
Monday 29th April 2024
In the seventh week I focused on getting Chapter 4 done which is the problem solving section for the project. I am also writing up about the Electoral Law and candidate expenditure rules as that has slightly changed my plans from my original proposal, I have mentioned this above in my diary entry a few weeks ago.
I went out filming on the Wednesday to mainly experiment with the shot types and angles and of course if there is anything that needs changing from the planning elements of the script. I realised that the main problem I encountered was that the clip on microphones were not the right thing for the job for the campaign video. They seem to be sound really noisy and loud even if you moved the microphone more away from yourself. The shot types and angles I experimented with worked really well, I think if we used a 16 - 60mm lens it might also minimize the wide angle look and it also will help us frame the image a little bit better and get rid of all the bits which are not needed. I also used a tripod which helped us out massively and I think using the gimbal wasn’t very good either as I thought framing up and shooting was way better then walking around and doing walking shots.
After experimenting on the weekend, I went out again to reshoot with the 16 - 60mm lens and of course It made things 10x better rather then using the wide 8mm for the shots and of course this made things a lot easier to shoot and reframe. I also went out with an altered script, so I could read it a lot easier without somebody turning the page when that would disrupt the filming process and of course then more stuttering would occur and I didn’t want that. I decided to shoot the Town Hall shots in front of the door on a Sunday morning so that nobody was going in and out of the front door and also there was no loud music being played in the bar in the boulevard in front of the Town Hall. It didn’t matter to me whether or not I re-shot on a different day as long as I wore the same clothes to keep the consistency throughout the project. It also helps when it was sunshining all day so the lighting was top notch. It always helps as you don’t need to alter anything in the aftermath as things were shot perfectly from the right beginning.
Monday 6th May 2024 to Monday 13th May 2024
On the week commencing 6th May, I spent my time that week experimenting in Premier Pro with the sound levels of the microphones as the clip on mics were not the best recording quality that I would of liked. I even placed them further down my shirt to pick up less of the tinniness of the sound, but it didn’t work it did make it somewhat better. That is why I experimented with the levels and turned it down as much as I could so it wasn’t as loud. I also spent my time editing the clips together with deciding what kind of cutaway shots I would need to pick up. I thought that a few shots of Southbank Road and a few close up shots from a distance of street signs were a good idea; I also thought a nice low down shot looking down the cycle lanes down Houghton Street with the leading of lines effect would look good too. I filmed these shots on the Sunday and the shots came out better then I thought as I was doubting they would be any good.
By next week which was the 13th May, I put the cutaway shots into premier pro with the existing shots of me talking in them and I edited them together and to be honest, it came out better then I thought. I also went YouTube to see if I could find any free to use stock recorded drone shots of Southport for the outro and I put it at the end which gives the video a sense slowing down and winding down from the main action. I thought originally the video should be around 1 minute and 50 second maximum mainly because I feel people don’t want to listen to lots of long winded things and of course linking this back with my script, I felt like using simplistic words so that people can understand them; makes things a lot easier. I also added a intro screen with the basic text and branding which would relate to the campaign video.
During the week after a perfected my final edit, I cracked on with the movie/advertising poster and that was branding specific and of course I used corporate colours to influence by design. I have even gone down to the lengths of using the Conservative Party’s Visual Identity Guide which has all the information to do with the colour codes and pallet imfomation; even right down to what kind of designs which I should use and of course what kind of party logo to use in what context and where. It is very complicated, but with my final major project being based on a campaign video, I had to keep everthing corporate and with me being the Conservative Kew Candidate for the 2024 Local Elections, things had to relate back in someway.
Monday 20th May 2024 to Wednesday 12th June 2024 - DEADLINE
From this week and right up until the deadline, I focused on ironing up on the blog work and making sure it is ready for the deadline. The last remaining Chapters that I am focusing on are Six, Seven and Eight.
