Cabinet on the Road
Prudence likes to take the Cabinet on the road to have meetings in different places. But as this article in The Times states.
The Cabinet Office has gone out of its way to play down the cost of sending the Cabinet out of London even though mandarins originally opposed the concept. A parliamentary answer suggested that the first in September 2008, held in Birmingham where there are key marginal seats, cost £72,756.
But as with many things Prudence and NuLabor say, the devil is in the detail. And the figure above doesn’t include security by the local police. This was said about one visit to Leeds.
Only West Yorkshire Police has so far revealed the cost of a visit: £130,000 was spent on security at the Government’s second Cabinet meeting, held in Leeds in November 2008, trebling the cost from an initial £67,198 to £197,198. The Prime Minister’s eight Cabinet meetings have cost the taxpayer an average of £200,000.
I’m all for government learning more by visiting different places, but surely if they all decided to get on Eurostar to have a meeting in Paris and then left immediately afterwards for London, they would learn little about the French capital. It would always be better to hold the meeting at the most mutually convenient place and then visit where necessary afterwards.
It would also seem that Prudence and his cronies were economical with the truth.
No comments yet.
The Anonymous Widower 
Leave a comment