THE Scottish Liberal Democrats burned through a small fortune in their doomed attempt to defeat Alex Salmond at the general election, it has emerged.

Salmond's LibDem rival in the Gordon constituency, Christine Jardine, spent more than double the former First Minister only to see her party's share of the vote get smaller.

Official election returns show Jardine's campaign splashed £42,454 between December and polling day, compared to £17,511 spent by Salmond and his team.

The LibDem outlay in Gordon was just £100 less than the party spent in five Edinburgh seats.

Gordon was previously held by the LibDem MP Sir Malcolm Bruce, who retired in May.

Before the election, Jardine, who had a solid record fighting seats in the North East, had been expected to do well defending his majority of 6,748.

However in December, Salmond announced he would fight the seat, and the odds shifted dramatically in the SNP's favour.

By February, a poll commissioned by the Tory peer Lord Ashcroft found 43 per cent of voters had decided to vote SNP compared to 20 per cent for the LibDems.

Despite the remote possibility of victory, Jardine spent £27,409 on the first leg of the election up to the end of March, known as the long campaign, compared to Salmond's £2,502.

In the second leg, known as the short campaign, the pair were more evenly matched, with Jardine spending £15,045 to Salmond's £15,009.

On a campaign blog on May 3, Jardine wrote: "We've never produced so many leaflets, letters and postcards. We've never raised (and spent) so much money. And it's all been worth it."

Four days later Salmond increased the SNP vote share by 25.5 per cent to win by 8,687.

LibDem vote share fell 3.3 per cent, though Jardine got 1455 votes more than Bruce in 2010.

The returns also show Salmond received dozens of small donations from supporters around the country, including £100 from former BBC Scotland broadcaster Derek Bateman.

Overall, just under £14,000 of his campaign was funded through individual donations.

All £31,618 of Jardine's donations were attributed to the Aberdeenshire East LibDems, despite the party claiming a backlash against Salmond had sent a wave of donations its way.

Jardine said her 19,000 votes showed there had been significant LibDem support in the seat, and the spending level showed the party was fully committed to winning.

She told the Sunday Herald: "It was disappointing that we lost, but you do what you can to win and spend what you think is appropriate."

An SNP spokesman said: "No matter how much the Lib Dems spent, people in the North East and across Scotland were never going to forget or forgive the way they abandoned all of their principles, propped up a toxic Tory government for five years and served as enthusiastic cheerleaders for savage cuts which hit the working poor and vulnerable people hardest."