On March 18 Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden announced with great fanfare a bold “crackdown on wasteful spend” by freezing all Government Procurement Cards (GPCs) from that week to free up cash. As promised, Guido’s been keeping tabs on the pen-pushers’ expenses. Spoiler alert: the ‘crackdown’ is going as well as Labour’s mythical ‘bonfire of the quangos’…
In February, before Labour’s supposed war on waste kicked off, the Cabinet Office racked up £144,673.67 on its GPCs. In March that figure soared to a whopping £224,789.78. That’s a 55% jump in spending. Over £5,500 went on hotels alone. Not exactly penny-pinching…
McFadden insisted that GPC holders would need to reapply and justify their spending. Apparently Whitehall’s finest had no trouble passing that test. Business as usual, then…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”