Could this be David Walker?
Senior figures at the Audit Commission, which polices spending at local authorities, NHS trusts and other government bodies, spent almost £20,000 of public money over the past two years on luxury goods and services.
The credit card receipts disclose that Audit Commission executives enjoyed meals costing more than £600 at L’Escargot and Coq d’Argent in London. Hundreds of pounds were also spent at a brasserie owned by Raymond Blanc, the French chef. In total, £11,390 was spent on fine dining in two years.
The body is thought to be the first government organisation to release details of spending on taxpayer-funded credit cards. Thousands of other civil servants also have the cards, which have been used for spending of about £1? billion, leading to warnings of a public funds scandal.
For he was the head of PR for the Audit Commission. And that\’s what part of the PR job is, taking opinion formers (read, senior journalistic types) out for expensive meals and explaining what you\’d like them to write your views of what is going on.
So it wouldn\’t surprise me at all if it was: and if it was he might end up getting more stick for it than he truly deserves.
Someone I read somewhere proposed a standard taxpayer unit to be able to measure the enormity of figures that are banded around for public spending (and particularly waste). Something akin to the amount of tax the average earner pays on his income (ignoring VAT and duties etc) in one year.
Ball park figures: average earnings £25K, allowance last year £6.5K. Rest taxed at C. 33% = approx £6K. Thus just to pay for Polly’s husbands fancy lunches (allegedly your honour) it took 2 standard taxpayers to labour for an entire year, all for nothing.
Maybe that’s what we should do – every saving that could be made in public spending, never mind how little, should be put in a hat, and taxpayers drawn at random (from the electoral register say) and they are given a free ride for a year. No tax to pay at all. Better for a few people to enjoy a decent saving than everyone to save 1p in tax.
A real National Lottery, where it could indeed be you!
If this story appears in Guardian articles and on Comment is Free, then it almost certainly wasn’t Polly’s husband.
If it only appears in Guardian articles which cannot be commented on, then maybe it wasn’t.
If the Guardian don’t cover it at all, then …
‘audit commission expenses’ search returns zilch.
So does Mk1 eyeball search.
Fingers crossed in Tuscan villas?