Today's Guardian reports that many Conservative candidates benefited from a secret Tory fund worth over £2m in the run up to polling day.

Three donors - former Tory treasurer Lord Ashcroft, Lord Steinberg, chairman of Stanley Leisure, and the Midlands Industrial Council, which represents a group of Tory businessmen - combined to bypass party headquarters and directly fund constituency associations in marginal constituencies.

The practice does not break any of the rules on campaign funding laid down by the Electoral Commission.

Most of the targets were Labour MPs, although Liberal Democrats in the West Country and the independent MP for Wyre Forest, Richard Taylor, were also on the list.