When your boss tells you that your out of work and you have to get by on JSA(Job seekers allowance), spare a thought for the poor socialist MP's swilling back gallons of booze on your tax money...The budget for ministers' parties has been quietly increased by 50 per cent - and almost £140,000 spent on an exclusive wine cellar.
In the week when the Chancellor promised a Whitehall efficiency drive, official figures suggest Government hospitality is unaffected by the recession.
The unit set up to organise wining and dining for ministers and senior civil servants has had its budget increased by 52 per cent from £525,000 to £800,000 for this financial year.
The Government Hospitality Unit, based in the Foreign Office, delivers 'official hospitality for all government ministers and Permanent Secretary-level officials'.
Last year it delivered 208 functions at an average cost of £2,227 per event. Since 1997, it has cost £7.1 million to run.
The fund also oversees the administration of the Government wine cellar, and the maintenance of stocks of linen, china, silver and glassware.
Parliamentary questions have also revealed that last year, £137,460 was spent on new stock for the cellar – a rise of 26 per cent on the previous year.
They also show that an 'advisory committee on the purchase of wine', made up of senior officials, meets four times a year at a cost of £10,000.
The unit has recently purchased vintage and non-vintage Champagne, red Bordeaux, white and red Burgundy, white Loire, sweet white Bordeaux, red Spanish, red Italian, red Argentinean, red Australian, red Chilean, red New Zealand, red US, and English still and sparkling white and rosé wines.
Tory frontbencher Grant Shapps, who obtained the figures, said: 'As Gordon Brown announces the nation's biggest debt in history and talks about making efficiency savings, his own hospitality unit is living it up like never before.
New Labour quite literally pissing your tax money up against the wall.
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1 people have spoken:
That you even have a "Government Hospitality Unit" is amazing. Does it line up hookers, smoke, and blow for the ministers, too?
Over here, we have pages to do that for our dickhead pols...I think each Congressman gets a monthly stipend for buggery, immorality, and debauchery. I think it's written in the Constitution, right under: Thou shalt screw the taxpayer and they shall like it.
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