AP
DAVID Cameron has blown £1.8million of public money on tarting up Downing Street.
His extravagant spending has come to light as the Prime Minister continues to hammer families with savage cutbacks.
The bill for the renovations is expected to include the cost of a posh makeover at the apartment used by the PM’s family at No 11.
The smaller flat at No 10 used by Chancellor George Osborne, who is preparing to dish out another brutal Budget, is also thought to have been given a pricey revamp.
It makes a mockery of the Prime Minister’s pre-election pledge to cut the cost of politics.
Shadow Treasury minister Chris Leslie has called for Whitehall’s spending watchdog to investigate the “lavish” use of taxpayers’ cash.
Mr Leslie said: “This seems to go way beyond just refurbishment and maintenance for a building of national heritage.
“It doesn’t feel necessary when the country faces such difficult times.
“This seems to be seriously lavish expenditure which needs to be urgently explained.
“I think it is probably time for the National Audit Office to look at how this significant level of ongoing expenditure can be justified.” Mr Cameron’s spending on doing up and kitting out Downing Street has been revealed in dozens of entries on the Cabinet Office’s “transparency” website.
The scant details give clues about what the money went on and have been slipped out among hundreds of other entries on the site. Most Downing Street payments are listed as “building renovation” or “refurbishment of No 10”. The vast majority – including one of £248,000 and another of £180,000 – are to project management company Ecovert FM Ltd.
Tory leader Mr Cameron, who is plotting a new Whitehall jobs massacre, said before the general election that everyone would have to be more thrifty – including politicians.
And he promised a “wholesale change of culture” in the way taxpayers’ money is spent.
Mr Cameron declared: “Under a Conservative government, far from politicians being exempt from the age of austerity, they must show leadership. And leadership is about doing, not just telling.”
His extravagant spending has come to light as the Prime Minister continues to hammer families with savage cutbacks.
The bill for the renovations is expected to include the cost of a posh makeover at the apartment used by the PM’s family at No 11.
The smaller flat at No 10 used by Chancellor George Osborne, who is preparing to dish out another brutal Budget, is also thought to have been given a pricey revamp.
It makes a mockery of the Prime Minister’s pre-election pledge to cut the cost of politics.
Shadow Treasury minister Chris Leslie has called for Whitehall’s spending watchdog to investigate the “lavish” use of taxpayers’ cash.
Mr Leslie said: “This seems to go way beyond just refurbishment and maintenance for a building of national heritage.
“It doesn’t feel necessary when the country faces such difficult times.
“This seems to be seriously lavish expenditure which needs to be urgently explained.
“I think it is probably time for the National Audit Office to look at how this significant level of ongoing expenditure can be justified.” Mr Cameron’s spending on doing up and kitting out Downing Street has been revealed in dozens of entries on the Cabinet Office’s “transparency” website.
The scant details give clues about what the money went on and have been slipped out among hundreds of other entries on the site. Most Downing Street payments are listed as “building renovation” or “refurbishment of No 10”. The vast majority – including one of £248,000 and another of £180,000 – are to project management company Ecovert FM Ltd.
Tory leader Mr Cameron, who is plotting a new Whitehall jobs massacre, said before the general election that everyone would have to be more thrifty – including politicians.
And he promised a “wholesale change of culture” in the way taxpayers’ money is spent.
Mr Cameron declared: “Under a Conservative government, far from politicians being exempt from the age of austerity, they must show leadership. And leadership is about doing, not just telling.”
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/david-cameron-lavishes-almost-2m-of-taxpayers-765698
