THIS biblical stone tablet cost £7,614 to make and is widely thought to have cost Ed Miliband a shot at being the country's next Prime Minister.

But the cost of this ill-judged election trail stunt has just risen again after the Labour Party was hit by a record £20,000 fine for failing to properly declare all of its general election expenses - including the stone tablet.

The 8.5 ft tall stone tablet was unveiled by Prime Minister hopeful Mr Miliband in a Hastings car park on Saturday, May 2 2015 just days before the General Election

It was almost universally panned - the subject of thousands of tombstone, Mount Rushmore and Ed Stone jokes.

But party treasurer Iain McNicol is certainly not laughing after being judged by the Electoral Commission to have committed two offences in delivering an incomplete return on the stone tablet.

In January the commission published the party’s general election spending return online and almost immediately it received enquiries from journalists unable to identify any reference to spending on the stone tablet.

The party confirmed the items were missing and after the commission launched an investigation three weeks later, an internal party review uncovered 24 other undeclared election expenses totalling £109,777.

The commission has now concluded that the party’s spending return was missing 74 payments totalling £123,748, along with 33 separate invoices totalling £34,392.

Eleven of those invoices totalling £26,244 were not provided with the spending return and without any explanation - some of which have still to be located.

The remaining 22 invoices totalling £8,148, were not supported by the required receipt or invoice but just a monthly VISA statement listing transactions which is against electoral rules.

The commission said it had taken the steps to impose its largest fine since its inception in 2001 because of the value of the missing payments and invoices and because it was not the first time Labour had failed to deliver a complete campaign spending return..

The party’s pink bus, which toured the country speaking to female voters including a visit to Brighton, was also investigated by the commission but was found to have breached no rules.

Bob Posner, director of party and election finance at the Electoral Commission, said: “The Labour Party is a well-established, experienced party. "Rules on reporting campaign spending have been in place for over 15 years and it is vital that the larger parties comply with these rules and report their finances accurately if voters are to have confidence in the system.”

A Labour party spokeswoman said: “The party regrets these administrative errors. However, these amounted to just over 1 per cent of our total spending of over £12 million during this election.

“We accept the findings of the report and have already tightened our internal recording procedures to address the commission’s concerns.”

Ongoing investigations continue into other parties electoral spending are ongoing.