Look who’s spending your cash on lavish entertaining

Published: 27 August, 2010

• DO you remember that phrase “we’re all in this together” trotted out by the Conservatives to justify their massive and unnecessary cuts in public services?

Well, they seemed to have forgotten this very quickly indeed! Despite a £20million hole in city council’s budget, which has led to £60million of cuts over the next three years, Westminster Conservatives found no difficulty in spending nearly £10,000 on a “Living City 2010 Summer Recep­tion” at Westminster Abbey on July 1.

Attended by 151 people, the reception costs were £9,381 of which food was £1,680 and drinks were £1,123 (97 bottles of wine, 25 litres of orange juice, 21 bottles of water).

Other costs included venue hire and other catering and printing invitations make up the remainder of the total.

There is no excuse for this sort of extravagance at a time when children’s play schemes are being axed, charges are going up and staff are being sacked right across the council.

Westminster Conservatives are so used to spending the council’s money as it were there own that they have lost touch with reality.

In this day and age it is simply not acceptable and totally unnecessary to spend public money on lavish entertaining.

The money would be much better spent on front-line services.

In his speech to party guests, council leader Colin Barrow stressed that “cur­rent levels of spending are unsustainable” and that “we have to find a way of doing things differently or not doing them at all”. 

This obviously does not apply to council entertaining! It is obvious that there is one rule for the Conservatives and another for the rest of us.

Why else would the Conservatives have axed a number of very important community projects?

Two projects in Queen’s Park ward, for example, have lost over £100,000 following cuts in Local Area Agreement funding announced by the government.

Plans to extend the Katherine Bruce nursery costing £91,000 will not now go ahead and a project to help disengaged young men will finish six months earlier than planned to save £25,000.

These cuts will hit the most vulnerable residents in Westminster and make a mockery of the government’s so-called Big Society plans to help people to help themselves.

But the Conservatives are deaf to all these arguments.

They will keep spending your money to entertain their friends at lavish parties at your expense.

Are we all in this together?
Or is to just more Conservative spin?

CLLR PAUL DIMOLDENBERG
Leader of the Labour Group