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You've probably seen Channel 4's report on campaigning expenses, and Zac Goldsmith's rather bizarre attempt to ignore every rule of media training in addressing the allegations made against his campaign. In any case, once he did finally turn to the matter at hand, one of Mr Goldsmith's key arguments seems to be that the methods he used in his campaign – apportioning a percentage of costs for signs bearing his name and face to council elections, for example – are standard and have been used across the country. At the very end of the interview he even notes, of the Electoral Commission:

"Or they'll look at it and find something wrong. In which case, we'll need a repeat general election, because the rules that I adhered to are the same as the rules for other MPs".

This doesn't entirely make sense – as if he has adhered to the rules there'll be nothing for the commission to rule against – but the point's clear. Apparently every MP out there has been apportioning some costs off to local elections, leaving their short campaign expenses within the limits.

Only one way to find out, then.

As Mr Goldsmith claimed to have taken advice from Conservative Central Office, I figured it was worth checking the Short Campaign expenses of our local Conservative candidate, Jonathan Clamp. And, just to see if the other parties might be up doing the same sort of thing, I also checked the records for his opponent – Labour candidate, and now MP, Heidi Alexander.

The Short Campaign expenses limit in Lewisham East for the General Election 2010 was £7,150 plus 5p per elector. I took the electorate figure of 64,880 from the Lewisham council website, making this £10,394.40. Interestingly both candidates had worked to different figures, based on different numbers of voters, but not by much – we all believed the limit to be around £10,400 to £10,600. So, what did they spend?

Jonathan Clamp

In Mr Clamp's case, it's all rather simple. His expenses were neatly tallied up with receipts, and having spent around £400 on advertising and £7225 on direct mail his total was barely above £8,000. Should anyone wish to check I've created a PDF of his short campaign expenses here – note that I've redacted his home address from the one document where it appears. There are a few costs on the print receipts not included in the Short Campaign tally, but those were all accounted for in his Long Campaign expenses (examined, but not reproduced here). So far, so good.

Heidi Alexander

It might be argued that, as a third candidate in what is largely a two-horse race between Labour and the Lib Dems, Mr Clamp had little incentive to really push his campaign as hard as possible. So, I checked Heidi Alexander's expenses also. Again, I've created a PDF of the short-run receipts, which you can download here. I've redacted Ms Alexander's home address, her website username and a few bank account details from some receipts, and skipped the inside pages of BT phone bills.

These are rather more tricky to check, with hand-written documents and more receipts. The summary page lists a total spend of just under £6,000 – even less than Mr Clamp – although looking at the Spending Breakdown you can see that many items are marked with an "amount paid" significantly greater than the "value of item" that was included in this total.

In some cases this disparity makes sense, as for example it appears that £200 of a £400 sum paid for balloon gas was a deposit, but it's not always as clear. Nonetheless, assuming the worst case scenario – that the entire Amount Paid should have been accounted for in every case – the total expended works out at £9190.03, which is still some way below the maximum.

And that's it – a lot of ink and a few badly photocopied receipts, but not much else. I look forward to seeing what the people checking other constituencies come up with, not to mention what the Electoral Commission decides with regard to Mr Goldsmith's signs.

I never did hear back from Simon Nundy about his campaign's dodgy use of graphs with misleading titles. But look, I made him a new one from the 2010 results:

Obviously I took the results from Hackney because, you know, they make the point better. But it still works, right?

Simon Nundy is the Conservative candidate for Mayor of Lewisham. On his website you'll find this graph:

Eagle eyed Lewisham residents will note, of course, that there was no Lewisham Mayoral election in 2008. The last was in 2006. More importantly, that election saw the Lib Dems come in second (18,889) behind Labour (25,129), with the Tory candidate languishing in third (10,790). The Green Party did pretty well, too, coming in fourth with 7168. Full results here.

The figures in Mr Nundy's graph are from the 2008 London Mayoral Election, where it was a two horse race between Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone – a rather different set of circumstances. So here we have a clear attempt to pass off one set of figures as another in an attempt to woo tactical anti-Labour votes away from the Lib Dems. Perhaps the idea is that we Lewisham voters won't be bright enough to spot the trick.

I've emailed Mr Nundy to ask for his comments – but then Brockley Central picked up on this a few days ahead of me and they've heard nothing yet.

It's also important to note that it seems the Conservative party isn't the only one publishing some rather unusual graphs around here. Green Party candidate Darryl Chamberlain pointed out that Greenwich Labour appear to be up to some funny business in Peninsula Ward.

Pictured: a personable but slightly dim creature with impressively fluffy hair, left, and my cat Hunter.*

One of the great benefits of the internet is being able to keep in touch with political developments as they happen – whether they be the pre budget report or, yesterday morning, a GLA plenary session on transport policy. One of the great annoyances of life, on the other hand, is listening to Boris 'bendy buses kill more cyclists'** Johnson and his ass-backward opinions on the various merits of public transport.

In fact, listening to Boris on public transport (the only time you'll see those four words together outside a photo opportunity right there, folks) is, as I realised, as frustrating as watching a cat attempt to operate a washing machine. And substantially less cute.

It's not even a matter of failed election promises, although a quick glance back through his transport manifesto does produce some gems – "halting the proposed Tube ticket office closures", anyone? – because, after all, Boris wasn't elected on the basis of his what he planned to do. He was elected because London's suburban voters recognised him as that funny bloke with the floppy hair off the telly. Personality over policies.

And on that note, meet Hunter.

Hunter is one of my two cats***. Like Boris, he has a mop of fluffy hair and, like Boris, he is either a little bit dumb or, very possibly, an evil genius simply pretending to be that way in order to ingratiate himself with fools. Like Boris he has no sensible policies on any issue facing London or Londoners, but has a few irrational dislikes (bin bags) and prejudices (Whiskas, not Felix) and knows how to play to his audience.

Hunter has not, however, published racist drivel, or, for that matter, written any of the same. Nor has he offended the people of Liverpool.

And so, assuming Boris stands again in 2012, I'd like Hunter to run for Mayor of London. In order to officially enter he'll need 330 signatories from around the city, which could be tricky, and a £10,000 deposit, which is frankly never going to happen. Which is a shame, because he could probably do a better job. Should you care to back him, there is what I believe constitutes a "Interweb 3.11 for Workgroups social media twampaign", or something like that, on Twitter here: #VOTEHUNTERFORMAYOR.

Notes:

* Photo by Adam Procter, CC licensed, original here.

** Fans of statistics may be interested to note that no they really really fucking do not.

*** His brother, Ralph H Cat, Esq, has no interest in provincial politics and intends to seize power as evil overlord of the universe sometime next April.

Worth reading as a sidebar to the post-election fallout: first this – Ana Marie Cox interviews Nicolle Wallace on the most elegant way to lie under a bus – then this, where as predicted the Republican right begins to indulge in an orgy of self destruction and blame, much of which is directed towards Ms Wallace.

From this article, which picks up about half way through:

NEWSWEEK has also learned that Palin's shopping spree at high-end department stores was more extensive than previously reported. While publicly supporting Palin, McCain's top advisers privately fumed at what they regarded as her outrageous profligacy. One senior aide said that Nicolle Wallace had told Palin to buy three suits for the convention and hire a stylist. But instead, the vice presidential nominee began buying for herself and her family—clothes and accessories from top stores such as Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus. According to two knowledgeable sources, a vast majority of the clothes were bought by a wealthy donor, who was shocked when he got the bill. Palin also used low-level staffers to buy some of the clothes on their credit cards. The McCain campaign found out last week when the aides sought reimbursement. One aide estimated that she spent "tens of thousands" more than the reported $150,000, and that $20,000 to $40,000 went to buy clothes for her husband. Some articles of clothing have apparently been lost. An angry aide characterized the shopping spree as "Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast," and said the truth will eventually come out when the Republican Party audits its books.

And from the bad news department, Proposition 8 passed.

Ohio went for the democrats as predicted, and 338 to 163 makes it a resounding victory. Thank fuck. And it should be noted that McCain who was, prior to the campaign ticket, always a representative of the saner side of the republican party, gave a graceful and impressive concession speech (See also here – "Yes, we will watch John McCain, who is looking down with disgust at his supporters, who are booing and hissing. It is no fun to lose a contest. But good god, his supporters are garbage"). Good for him.

As for Palin, I hope she gets hunted down by a helicopter full of angry moose. Go moose.

Spent tonight at the British Society of Magazine Editors awards. Gongs were handed out, Grazia won the top award, and Felix Dennis recited a poem – so far, so normal – but most people had something else on their minds. Top marks, in fact, to the editor of Vogue, who collected an award at the oh-so-formal event wearing an Obama 08 t-shirt.

Back at the flat, and with polls on the east coast closed for three hours CNN is projecting 174 to 49 in the electoral college and a 52 to 33 senate split with Florida and North Carolina currently impossible to call. Oh, and Arizona, oddly, is also still listed orange. Everything looks fairly good, in fact. But then hardly any of the votes have actually been counted, and for all CNN's fancy graphics (and my, are they fancy – Wolf Blitzer has what appears to be a giant iPod Touch that interfaces directly with the collective mind of America, or something) these are only projections based on exit polls. And polls, as we all know, often suck. Bah. I would check Fox for the view-from-mars polls (they've probably called California for McCain) but Virgin Media doesn't carry it. Damn you liberal media, etc.

And now it's 2am and the exit polls in my brain are reporting 15% drunk, 70% exhausted and 30% no longer able to work out percentage splits, so I'm going to bed. And if things take a turn for the worse overnight, expect me to be grumpy for a while. Like, say, four years.

PS – now they've cut to some country music berk in Arizona with the promise of a "major projection". I'm a sucker, but I'm going to wait for this one.

PPS – this is quite clearly a ploy to make me sit through shitty commercials, and it's working.

PPPS – 2.40am and Ohio projected to Obama after 15% count (<2m), 55% to 44%. CNN describing Republican position as "very bleak". CNBC talking about lines being crossed and the size of margins in the senate rather than the overall result. If this is correct, excellent. Now, bed.