The first breakdown of party spending during election campaigns has revealed a huge discrepancy over who the Conservatives attempted to target.

The advertising budget for the party came to approximately £8 million of the £17.8 million total, with more than half of this going on unsolicited mail shots to floating voters.

Invoices reveal that the party spent £1.5 million on immigration leaflets and £523,000 on crime, with a further £7,000 on targeting UK Independence Party supporters. The “Are you thinking what we are thinking?” campaign, which led to claims of racism, cost £120,000.

While Labour fought the election on the public services, the Tories’ combined spending on health and education was £1.5 million.

This suggests that the Tories gave up on attracting voters in the centre ground. This was reinforced last night when it emerged that they spent £380,000 on a mailshot for pensioners, but a sixth of this — £49,000 — on targeting “urban young professionals”.

Much of this was the work of their Australian election guru Lynton Crosby, who earned £441,000 in the campaign. He was blamed for the Tories’ negative campaigning. One of the biggest mailshots was an apparent appeal for money, marked “postal vote / financial appeal”, which cost £1.2 million.

Labour’s campaign involved attracting upmarket film production companies to produce party political broadcasts. The party spent £131,600 on six broadcasts.

Labour employed the Picture Production Company to buy “AOL Spots”, spending £9,000 on advertising space on the online service. The party also spent £2,000 to use six Press Association photographs on its website, all of which were more easily available.

The Tories invested heavily in data from a Californian company, Cause-America Branding in Brea, to provide them with a million e-mail addresses in marginal constituencies.

Some donors to the Tory party may be unhappy that their funds were used to pay for a libel action against a Labour MP. The party had to come up with £40,000 after Martin Salter, the Reading West Labour MP, successfully sued Liam Fox, then Tory chairman, over remarks regarding his behaviour towards journalists.

• An ICM poll for today’s Guardian puts the Tories on 34 per cent, Labour on 32 per cent, and the Lib Dems on 24 per cent.

LITTLE LUXURIES

Michael Howard’s make-up during the election by Carolyne Martini cost £3,638.35

Alastair Campbell billed Labour for £47,000 for four months’ work

Charles Kennedy charged £4,800 for six bespoke suits and £355 for six shirts

Producing 5,000 hand flags for the Tories cost the party £1,715.50

Tony Blair billed the Labour Party £53.46 for his car to take him to Buckingham Palace to call the election. The bill included two hours’ waiting time

Times Recommends

• Olympic-size television coming to your town
• Mosley opens new front in battle for privacy
• Decorator fined for smoking in van