The big day’s come – the one you’ve all been waiting for. It’s the release of Labour’s much-trailed ‘GPC Files’, which Guido managed to spike last Friday. Apologies to the Labour press office…

This morning Labour’s all over the airwaves promoting the ‘dossier’, though only the Guardian bothered to splash it. There are, to be fair, some good revelations of absurd government waste by departments; including £1,903 for a ‘Hot Pink Photo Booth’, £14,957 on luxury flowers and just under £500,000 on home furnishings. Guido welcomes the Taxpayers’ Alliance-style investigation after years of covering examples of such waste himself – we are hiring if anyone at Labour Press is interested…

The only problem is the hypocrisy of the messengers. Angela Rayner was out on the radio this morning and was confronted about her expensing two sets of luxury Apple AirPods Pro, after she lost the first pair. She also spent £1,619.00 on an Apple computer and put a smashed phone screen repair on the public credit card. No one’s saying MPs don’t need headphones and computers – much the same way civil servants obviously need hotel rooms. Whether they need to be uber-expensive Apple products/5* hotels is the exact point Labour’s making on waste…

Rachel Reeves, on the other hand, actually had her official expenses credit card suspended in 2015 after ” failing to show spending was valid”. At the time IPSA suspended her expenses card, she owed over £4,000. Shadow education minister Toby Perkins also had his card suspended while owing almost £700.

Emily Thornberry was the Shadow Minister responsible for creating this dossier, asking 350+ written questions to force the information from the government. At around £150 per written question in time and administrative costs, she spent £52,500 asking about government waste. One of her questions was about a hotel stay by Rishi and his Treasury team in Venice – information already publicly available thanks to a 2022 Guido article. Wasting taxpayer cash to ask a question about wasting taxpayer cash…

Does anyone really believe that the Labour Party will be any more frugal and careful with taxpayers’ money? It is just not in their DNA.