Mr Alexander, the International Development Secretary and MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South, paid £150 in 2004 for an advertisement at Johnstone Burgh FC, who play in the Scottish Junior Football West Division One.
Given Labour is now attacking civil servants for having the temerity to purchase stationery, Guido’s working his own way through’s the opposition’s shining record of handling taxpayer cash with sensitivity and respect.
The Shadow Foreign Secretary David Lammy managed to escape the expenses scandal relatively unscathed, though that’s partly because his own expenses mishandling hit the headlines many years prior to 2009. Having already had his money grubbing fingers burnt, he learnt his lesson early before some of his subsequently jailed comrades…
In October 2004, the Haringey Advertiser revealed that taxpayers had been forking out for Lammy to rent a second home in South London, despite his own constituency home in Haringey being just 28 minutes from Westminster by tube. This arrangement cost taxpayers £12,041 between April 2003 and March 2004.
In 2009 the then-higher education minister’s criticism of a Public Accounts Committee report into government waste resulted in the Treasury putting out a memo warning that such behaviour could result in ministers being censured. According to the November 2009 edition of Public Servant magazine:
“An attack by two ministers on parliamentary reports revealing waste and incompetence in their departments has provoked the Treasury to warn that ministers will face public censure if they make immediate statements to the media on future reports.
Statements by defence minister Quentin Davies and higher education minister David Lammy have led to a new Whitehall member to accounting officers banning attacks on Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reports before the Treasury can make a considered response.”
He wasted taxpayer cash, then complained when parliamentary committees scrutinised government waste. Yet more evidence that in government Labour would waste taxpayers’ money…
See also: Previous expense fiddlers: Douglas Alexander and Yvette Cooper‘s appraisals.
Since Labour are giving it both barrels on their new Damian McBride-inspired campaign for efficient spending, Guido’s looked through the archives to see how the Shadow Cabinet handled taxpayers’ money when they were in government. A worthwhile effort given they seem to have no issue resurrecting the political career of Douglas Alexander, despite his notorious expense fiddling…
First up, the Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper. At the time of the expense scandal in 2009, Cooper was the DWP Secretary. Her husband, professional dancer Ed Balls, was the Children’s Secretary. Together, the pair were investigated for flipping the designation of their second home three times within the space of just two years. In total, they claimed £24,400 on their second-home allowance, more than the £23,000 allotted to individual MPs…
While the standards commissioner ultimately ruled the claims were above board because they had paid (ouch) capital gains following their move, the pair were later forced to repay £1,363 each for a mortgage overpayment. Nonetheless, the taxpayer still footed the £2,000 bill for removal men to haul the couple’s furniture around London – and, according to the Telegraph, “submitted regular claims for food, usually totalling up to £600 a month”. The maximum food allowance for a single MP was £400. Not to mention the £225 Cooper spent on a digital camera, and £1,200 on 30,000 calendars. At the time, Cooper and Balls were both on salaries of £141,866 a year…
Strangely, Labour’s dossier of GPC spending omits lots of the details provided within ministers’ answers to Emily Thornberry’s written questions. One such example is spending by the Foreign Office with a company called Capital Pinball, purchased multiple times by the department from 2021 to 2022. Summing £13,263.
In response to one of Emily’s questions, the FCDO revealed that Capital Pinball had provided furniture hire for the British High Commission in the Aussie capital Canberra, and the High Commissioner’s official residence Westminster House. Among the events catered for parties for were: the Queen’s Birthday Party; UK in Australia’s 2021 end-of-year reception; a lunch for Chevening scholars… and a networking reception for Labor party staffers after the Australian federal election. UK Labour’s sister party…
Presumably while the left-wing staffers from down under were enjoying their taxpayer-funded largesse, they were similarly disgusted by the UK government’s waste – especially that spaffed on furniture provided by Capital Pinball. Guido presumes UK Labour staffers will turn down any reciprocal invitation from Australia’s London High Commission should they win the next election…
On the day Labour launches its big attack on government expenses and taxpayer waste, former cabinet minister Douglas Alexander is busy celebrating his return as a Labour candidate for East Lothian at the next general election. Following his selection last night, Alexander claimed he’s “humbled and delighted” to be standing, and is promising to “get down to some serious work to ensure a Labour victory“. This is, of course, the same Douglas Alexander who spent over £30,000 on expenses renovating his constituency home, and paid back £12,600 over the renting out of a “building next to his flat” between 2001 and 2005…
At the time, his spokesperson said he repaid this only “for the avoidance of doubt“, and denied any wrongdoing. Among the expensed items he claimed for his second home were a CD player, bed sheets, and new garage doors. All apparently essential for his work as an MP, and so at the gift of the taxpayer. The timing of the announcement of his return today will not please the Labour press office…
UPDATE: From the archives we’ve pulled out some more examples of Douglas Alexander’s carelessness with taxpayer funds:
• He claimed £2,000 for household items lost in a fire after he declared that he was “under-insured”. He ended up repaying the £2,000.
• He spent taxpayers’ money on advertising himself at football and rugby league matches. According to the Telegraph he took advertisements on pitch-side hoardings and in match programmes:
In March 2006, the club wrote to him saying: “Payment is now due for your advertising board sited at Keanie Park for season 2005/06 at the agreed donation of £200.” He opted to advertise for another year, and charged the taxpayer.
Adverts that should have been paid for out of Labour Party funds instead were charged to the taxpayer…
As Labour have begun their anti-waste GPC files offensive, they could have put more thought into who they wheeled out to lead the charge. On BBC News this morning, Angela Rayner was taken to task for her own taxpayer funded exuberance. She claimed £2,100 for luxury Apple gear, including personalised engraved* AirPods.
Rayner’s defence was that tech was necessary for her job – she was using her taxpayer-funded iPad for the interview – and that it had gotten good use. She claimed “most people see that as value for money”. Most people might also be aware that Angela could just have easily bought refurbished Apple tech for a fraction of the price. Whilst Rayner was using the iPad for the interview, Guido notes that, again, her AirPods weren’t in use for work purposes.
When pressed further on the need for Apple goods specifically, as opposed to less expensive alternatives, she gave the less convincing defence that “all of the equipment has to sync with each other so that I can carry out my work”. Bluetooth headphones can connect to all bluetooth compatible devices, including Apple devices.
*Despite the engraving she still managed to lose them and stick the taxpayer with a bill for a second pair. Which she wasn’t using in her interviews today…
After Monday bought revelations that Jared O’Mara filed £30,000 in fraudulent coke-fuelled expenses, the disgraced ex-Labour MP yesterday faced his second day in court. Those who have followed Jared’s parliamentary career won’t be surprised to hear that he didn’t actually turn up – he appeared via video link.
The court heard Georgia Wilson as its first witness, the director of MP services for IPSA. Wilson first became aware of O’Mara in July 2019, when a £3,000 expenses claim had to be filed with the police – after this she made sure O’Mara’s claims received more intense scrutiny. Wilson took up some of his discrepancies, and failure to file expenses on time, with the ex-MP, who cited staffing issues. He also blamed a “torn bicep”.
Wilson then discussed the invoices from Confident About Autism SY – an organisation that doesn’t actually exist. She described “amateurish” counterfeits, with differing fonts, formats and issues with serial numbers. After O’Mara had announced his resignation, he then asked Wilson to reimburse him for his filed expenses – he claimed his police investigation was over. It wasn’t.
Wilson went on to paint the picture of an office in disarray. She describes “growing dysfunction” as O’Mara was haemorrhaging staff, and that any interactions with IPSA were on an ad hoc basis. As O’Mara reported himself sick to the Commons, she says the MP was “garbled” and “self-contradictory”, adding it was clear there were issues around his mental state. The trial continues.
