Chancellor Rachel Reeves has vowed to take an “iron fist” to government waste but we all know it’s just words. They’re having too much fun blowing our cash.
Rachel Reeves talks pension funds in Mansion House speech
The Conservatives promised to wage a constant war on waste but that was just talk, too. In 14 years they never eliminated the deficit while our national debt climbed from 64.7% of GDP to 96.5%.
While ordinary Britons tightened their bets the Tories blew money like a lottery winner with a week to live.
The Tories threw money about, from the Ministry of Defence paying £22 for 65p light bulbs to £29.5billion on the failed Test and Trace Covid programme.
If they couldn’t curb Whitehall excesses, Labour won’t.
It’s the party of the public sector, and its supporters want more government spending rather than less.
Cabinet ministers are railing at Reeves’ challenge to find 5% efficiency savings across every department and two ministers are going to cause her particular problems.
Their names? Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and energy secretary Ed Miliband.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves will struggle to curb free-spending cabinet ministers (Image: Getty)
It’s the little things that give you away. Those £22 light bulbs became a symbol of how Whitehall wastes our cash. Labour has carried on where the Tories left off.
As Reeves launched her crackdown it emerged that the Department for Culture Media and Sport splashed almost £1,200 buying two ministerial folders from luxury leather goods manufacturer Barrow Hepburn & Gale.
Rayner is splurging £68,000 a year on a “vanity photographer” whose sole job is to follow her around and take pictures.
Apparently she wants to let us all know “here’s me, this is what I’m doing … ”.
It’s pure vanity. If taxpayers wanted to know what Rayner was doing, they’d find cheaper ways.
Last year Rayner was in the dock for buying personalised iPads, again, at your expense.
So far, 11 Labour ministers have defied Reeves’ iron fist and spent £130,000 redecorating their offices. The joys of power, eh?
Rayner was in there, blowing £16,000 on refurbishing offices outside of London. But the biggest spender?
Ed Miliband. He blew £43,000.
In government terms, this is just small change. Miliband’s spree worries me because he seems just as cavalier when it comes to spending much larger sums.
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Miliband has blown £8.3billion setting up GB Energy, which has been slammed as a “needless new quango”.
It’s a pure vanity project for Red Ed. The Tories lifted renewable energy to 50% of our electricity mix by encouraging private companies to risk their own money. Miliband would rather risk yours.
He’s set to waste another £22billion on unproven carbon capture and storage technology that’s never worked anywhere.
If Reeves was serious about her war on waste she’d start with him. Ditching those two vanity projects could close her £22billion black hole with cash to spare.
She could save another £11.6billion by dropping Miliband’s commitment to fund international climate finance.
Where will that cash go? “On sending a powerful signal to the world that we are serious about the leadership role the UK can play in driving global climate action,” in Miliband’s words.
That’s a lot of money to spend on a signal. Even a “powerful” one.
It’s amazing how politicians suddenly discover heaps of cash when they want a new toy. Just look at HS2. The £100billion would have been better used paying down our national debt.
Labour ministers didn’t spend years fighting to get into power to cut government spending. They did it so they could go on spree. And Reeves’ iron fist won’t deter them.
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