Section:GDN BE PaGe:1 Edition Date:071022 Edition:05 Zone: Sent at 22/10/2007 1:23 cYanmaGentaYellowblack

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Election that never was cost Labour £1mCash-strapped party spent fi ve times as much as Tories on preparationsDavid HenckeWestminster correspondent

Gordon Brown’s decision this month not to call a general election has left the cash-strapped Labour party with a bill approach-ing £1m, the Guardian has learned.

By Saturday October 6, when the prime minister decided not to go ahead with the election, party officials had sanctioned hundreds of thousands of pounds of expenditure on booking hoarding sites, literature and recruitment of staff, and were at an advanced stage in setting up a media centre to handle daily press conferences.

The cost of detailed polling in mar-ginal seats by Opinion Leader Research — the company run by one of the prime minister’s most trusted pollsters, Debbie Mattinson — is also understood to have run to hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The Conservatives are thought to have spent substantially less in the week before the election was called off . It is understood their bill came to less than £200,000.

Meanwhile, Labour candidates in some marginal seats had already printed letters to go out to supporters. One , Martin Lin-ton, who has a majority of 163 over the Conservatives in Battersea, south London, sent out letters to thousands of Labour members and supporters asking for their help. Because of the postal strike, hardly any reached their destinations until well after the election was called off .

Final details of the cost are likely to be revealed to members of Labour’s national executive committee today when a report is to be given by Peter Watt, general secre-tary , at a conference call meeting.

The Guardian has been told by Labour and union sources that:• Some three million letters — the fi rst tranche of a series to key voters and sup-porters — were printed and had to be binned • Technicians working on communica-tion links at the Conservative party con-ference in Blackpool were called away by Labour on a contract to work on the

election media centre in Vict oria Street, London• Furniture and equipment for the media centre was ordered, and a lorry delivering the equipment had to be turned away on the following Monday • Hundreds of poster sites booked by Labour had to be pre-paid — the Tories also booked sites and mobile posters which are now being used to campaign for a Euro-pean referendum• Staff were recruited to work at union headquarters — notably the GMB and Unite — on campaigns in marginal seats

The unexpected bill comes at a bad time for the party ,which has a defi cit of around £20m and suff ered a big drop in donations last year because of the “cash for honours” investigation.

Donations were just beginning to recover when the prospect of an early general election was raised by Mr Brown’s younger supporters. From euphoria dur-ing the Labour conference at the end of last month, the mood changed totally during the Conservative gathering after George Osborne, the shadow chancel-lor, pledged to abolish inheritance tax on estates below £1m and David Cameron made an unscripted and well received speech.

One of the arguments for calling an early election was to prevent Lord Ash-croft, the Conservative deputy party chairman, spending a £2.5m war chest in marginal seats. An early election would have limited the amount he could spend because of rules governing prospective parliamentary candidates.

The cost of the election is certain to be raised when Labour’s national execu-tive meets next month. Some members thought Mr Brown should not have con-sidered calling the election .

The party declined to respond to ques-tion from the Guardian. Opinion Leader Research also did not respond . One mem-ber of the national executive committee, Ann Black, said: “I don’t know the cost and even if I did I would not tell you.”

guardian.co.uk/politics ≥

National

1,000 prison staff on misconduct listMore than 1,000 prison offi cers in England and Wales were found guilty of miscon-duct between 2000 and 2006. Off ences included improper sexual relationships, endangering the safety of jails, unprofes-sional conduct and being absent from duty without leave. The fi gures, released after months of delay by the Home Offi ce fol-lowing a Guardian freedom of information request, show disciplinary cases at each jail in 2000-06, as reported by prisons to the Home Offi ce. Prisons where guards were disciplined most frequently for bad conduct are Birmingham, Manchester, Risley in Cheshire, and Bel-marsh and Brixton in London.

International

Liberals crush twins in Poland’s electionPoland’s liberal party scored a stunning victory over the populist Kaczynski twins last night, abruptly ending prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski’s self-styled “moral revolution” after two years. Exit polls gave the Civic Platform, led by Donald Tusk, a 13-point lead over Mr Kaczynski’s Law and Justice party, confi rming the latter disas-trously miscalculated in calling an early election . The Peasants’ party, Mr Tusk’s preferred coalition partner, won 8% , indi-cating the two parties will have a majority, and, with the help of the third-place left alliance, can stop the double act’s other half, President Lech Kaczynski, blocking their legislation .

Financial

Reforms to restore trust in banks urgedLeading private sector bankers called for sweeping reforms to address problems exposed by the crisis in credit markets to try to restore investor confi dence. The Institute of International Finance out-lined a five-point blueprint to prevent a recurrence of the problems triggered by defaults in US sub-prime mortgages. Joseph Ackermann, chairman of the IIF and Deutsche Bank, said: “It is clear a number of structural problems have raised issues that need to be addressed not only, but primarily, by the financial industry to follow through on immediate corrective measures that many institutions have started to implement.”

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That’s the hat-trick … Hamilton the latest English sporting loser

Lewis Hamilton’s hopes of winning the formula one world championship — which seemed to have disappeared when he could fi nish no higher than seventh in yesterday’s Brazilian grand prix — were briefl y revived late last night when a stewards’ inquiry threatened three of his rivals’ cars with disqualifi ca-tion for a technical infringement.

On a sizzling day at the Interlagos circuit, the temperature of the petrol in the cars fi nishing fourth, fi fth and sixth was said to have fallen below the permitted minimum level, which would have given them extra horsepower. Their disqualifi cation, at the end of a season riven with controversy, would have handed Hamilton the points he needed to become grand prix racing’s fi rst rookie champion, but after an investigation the results were allowed to stand .

So there will be no sportsman on the vacant plinth in Trafalgar Square this week. A dismal few days for English sport were brought to an anti-climactic conclusion when a series of errors and a piece of mechanical misfortune kept the trophy out of Hamilton’s hands.

His disappointment followed a midweek defeat for the national football team, taking it to the brink of non-qualifi cation for next summer’s Euro 2008 tournament, and the failure of England’s rugby XV, the defending world champions, to overcome South Africa in the fi nal of the Rugby World Cup in Paris on Saturday. Even the

consoling belief that offi cials mistakenly favoured the Springboks disappeared yesterday when it became

clear that the video referee had been correct to disal-low Mark Cueto’s try. At the start of yester-day’s race in Sao Paulo, the last of the season’s 17 rounds, Hamilton

needed only to fi nish within sight of his two main rivals to take the title. But the 22-year-old from Stevenage

Richard WilliamsSao Paulo

8-9 & Sport≥

Martin Corry‘It’s hard to escape an overwhelming sense of dejection and disappointment’Sport Page 7

Does Mark Thompson really have a vision for the BBC? Media Cover story

Turner PrizeAdrian Searle’s verdict on the shortlistG2 Page 23

£0.80Monday 22.10.07Publishedin London andManchesterguardian.co.uk

The Guardian’s award-winning website, Guardian Unlimited, remains the largest newspaper site in Britain with more unique users than any other UK news-paper. The latest audited fi gures show GU with 15.82 million unique users during August — a 26.35% increase on last year. Times Online recorded 10.24 million users, Telegraph.co.uk 9.77 million and Mail Online 11.59 million.

Guardian Unlimited had 155 million page

impressions, according to the ABCe fi gures

A defl ated Lewis Hamilton is consoled by his father, Anthony, after yesterday’s race, above, while an England rugby fan tastes defeat, right Photograph: Empics

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