A FORMER aide to Margaret Thatcher recalls the time she collared the civil servant in charge of furnishing government offices.
Pointing to an armchair, she thundered: “It’s just been upholstered and cost £1,200. I phoned John Lewis and was told they could have done it for £180!”
Whatever your view of Maggie’s politics, it’s undeniable that we could do with a little more of her prudent housekeeping mentality in today’s politics.
Which brings me to Commons speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle’s vastly extravagant expenses bills footed by the taxpayer.
At first, his office insisted that “all expenses and costs are processed and published in line with rules”, but yesterday it admitted to a simple “admin error” over one of the trips.
Either way, the huge sums spent globetrotting on our behalf by a man that 90 per cent of people wouldn’t recognise in the street are so jaw-dropping that the damage is done.
It’s been reported that, since October 2022, he’s spent more than £250k on 19 trips abroad.
And more than £180k of that was spent on first and business class flights alone as, splutter, he won’t fly economy.
We also paid for his limousines, luxury hotel stays and dining experiences in some of the world’s finest restaurants.
On top of all that, it seems that his wife, Lady Catherine Hoyle, has accompanied her husband on many of the supposedly business trips.
A plumber wouldn’t take his/her other half to watch them fit someone’s bathroom, so why the hell does a politician’s wife go along for the ride?
The Hoyles say her expenses are covered by them personally, but when it comes to hotels and restaurants, are the bills really painstakingly separated?
“My wife had the bread basket, not me.” Yeah, right.
One of the trips they took — to LA — was so he could give a talk to politics students at the University of California.
Seriously? Of what use is that to the British taxpayer?
The university should have footed the bill and, if not, he could easily have been beamed in via Zoom and saved us a fortune.
Instead, on top of the flights, he spent £3k on limos and another £3k on accommodation.
With the UK’s social care funding in the toilet, it’s obscene expenditure more in keeping with a tinpot dictatorship.
On top of that, he billed nearly £16k for four trips to Gibraltar.
Business class
On one jaunt there, he claimed £2k for business class flights, £1,320 for accommodation and £700 for food and drink — saying it was for him and three staff members.
Business class to Gibraltar? The flight’s under three hours, for god’s sake.
If they were going there on holiday, would they fork out two grand for the privilege of a slightly wider seat and a better quality bread roll? Doubt it.
When it comes to ‘other people’s money’ (i.e. ours) it seems that Sir Lindsay adopts the spend, spend, spend mentality
An economy flight to Gibraltar on easyJet this very morning would cost you £63.99 outbound and as low as £12.99 to return a week later.
But when it comes to “other people’s money” (i.e. ours) it seems that Sir Lindsay adopts the spend, spend, spend mentality.
Few would take issue with the PM and senior Cabinet ministers flying business class long haul while representing the UK abroad.
But the Speaker should be sticking to his job of, among other things, being MP for Chorley, Lancashire, and correcting MPs (oh the irony) if they have misled the House of Commons.
And in his spare time, he could perhaps pop into the John Lewis sale and pick up some bargain scatter cushions for some of those bum-numbingly long parliamentary sessions.
HIDER FINE A FARCE
WHEN Adrian and Joanne Fenton returned from a trip to France and found a Sudanese man hiding in the bike rack of their motorhome, their first instinct was to call the police.
The result? The couple, from Heybridge in Essex, were issued with a £1,500 fine from the Home Office for failing to “check no clandestine entrant was concealed” in their vehicle.
Er, isn’t that what the Border Force is for?
Meanwhile, the illegal migrant – who, natch, told police he was “16” – was taken away, no doubt to a hotel at the taxpayer’s expense.
The Fentons warn their story will deter other people from “doing the right thing” and they’re damned right.
I’ll bet they wish they’d just given him £20 for food and waved him off into the night.
SIZING UP ‘FAT’ ROLES
NOT much was sagging at the recent SAG awards in Hollywood, thanks to the obvious fondness of certain attendees for weight-loss jabs.
And it’s the same story at the Oscars, Brits and any other awards ceremony you care to mention.
Of course, there’s long been a terrible pressure on female stars in particular to stay slim and wrinkle-free unless they want to be cast as the mother of a male lead the same age as them.
So you can perhaps understand the trend.
But the good news for anyone who bucks it is that they’ll clean up with roles that Hollywood might describe as the “fat friend” but the rest of us regard as entirely normal in size.
MUSK MAMAS PUZZLE
RECENTLY, I wrote about Elon Musk’s alleged 13 children.
Since then, Shivon Zilis, who has three-year-old twins Strider and Azure and one-year-old Arcadia with Musk, has tweeted: “Discussed with Elon and, in light of beautiful Arcadia’s birthday, we felt it was better to also just share directly about our wonderful and incredible son Seldon Lycurgus.”
You can get an ointment for that.
So the alleged count is now at 14.
Musk is a pronatalist in favour of high birth rates, so that perhaps explains his fondness for offspring whose lives he appears to drift in and out of when it suits him.
But why his “baby mamas” (yuck) take part in this arrangement is anyone’s guess.
WHEN SIT HITS THE FAN
AN employment tribunal has ruled that asking a senior member of staff to sit somewhere deemed to be an area for junior employees could be construed as a demotion.
The judgment was made following the case of Hertfordshire-based estate agent Nicholas Walker who, as branch manager, expected to sit at a “symbolically significant” desk at the rear of the office and became ‘upset’ when told a junior colleague had taken it.
He resigned and cited constructive unfair dismissal. When his boss at the agency’s HQ heard about the row, he said he couldn’t believe “a man of his age” was “making a fuss” about a desk.
In this day and age, perhaps he should be grateful that Mr Walker wanted to attend the office at all.
WILL AND KATE’S CLASSY DISPLAY OF AFFECTION
THE Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – aka William and Kate – have never been ones for packing on the PDA.
But since her cancer diagnosis, there’s been a subtle shift.
She’s still not hanging off his arm or gazing adoringly at his every utterance (copyright: Meghan Markle) but this brief, loving glance shared at the Commonwealth Day Service tells you all you need to know about their mutual adoration and respect for each other.
Sidney Cooke freedom bid
KILLER paedophile Sidney Cooke is awaiting his 12th parole hearing.
The Parole Board says: “Decisions are solely focused on what risk a prisoner could represent to the public if released.”
Some might argue that, at 97, he’s of no danger to anyone and should live out his final years in freedom.
But he and his paedophile gang were suspected of abducting and killing 17 young boys back in the 70s and 80s.
And as his victims never got the chance to live their lives, why the hell should he?
