Tory MP ‘broke the law because he was desperate to beat Nigel Farage’

A Conservative MP accused of spending more than double the legal limit in election expenses abandoned any ‘proper regard for the law’ to beat Ukip’s Nigel Farage, a court heard. Craig Mackinlay, 52, secured a majority of just over 2,800 in south Thanet, Kent, after seeing off the Ukip vote in the 2015 general election. But the MP election agent, along with Nathan Gray, 29, and senior Tory campaign director Marion Little, 63, allegedly spent more than double the legal…