£700,000 Bill? Put it on the Public Tab!!Order! Order! Is the usual cry from the right honourable Mr Michael Martin, Speaker of the house to quell the rabble of arguing politicians during question time. It also appears to be the command Mr Martin is all too eager to shout when he is out shopping as well?
His home improvement bill adds up to well over 4 times the average mortgage that many people are grasping to keep hold of during these spiralling cost of living times.
Our man Martin over several years has racked up in excess of £700.000 pounds on furniture! Art! A brand new air conditioning system. And a whopping third of a million on Building restoration and refurbishment for his ‘rent free’ residence that is already paid for by the tax payer?
A Freedom of Information request by the Daily Telegraph revealed that over £100,000 a year was spent on the property since 2001.
Mr Martin's spokeswoman answered on ‘Mike the speakers’ behalf, saying it was part of an ongoing rolling restoration program for British heritage. And that Mr Martin often entertained foreign heads of state. No doubt the ‘speaker himself was out shopping for a Faberge egg to brighten up his living room, instead of answering questions directly?
Another shocking bill for Mr Martins rented property was the £992,000 pound wedge spent on doing up the garden. Although it was said that a large part of that was to beef up security after the 11th September 2001 terrorist attacks. Or was it to stop burglars trudging through his house marking the expensive carpets, flattening the cushions on his costly sofas. Stealing the priceless art off the walls! And all made more comfortable for the non perspiring intruders in the ‘temperature’ controlled premises!
The astronomical bill for his furniture comes in at a staggering £148,900???? It begs the question, what the hell are these visiting heads of state doing on Martin’s sofas? Jumping up and down on them!
Ok, you might think that the sod has to park his arse somewhere after a heavy day at the office. But there are bargains to be found at DFS or IKEA that are just as good value for money these days without immediately plumbing for the most expensive matching furniture shop in the high street!
So, our speaker of the house has a flair for spending the tax payers money on a home he doesn’t own that is also paid by the tax payer? But it doesn’t stop there. His wife and family have ‘allegedly’ dipped into the public pot as well. Mrs Martin has been using £4,000 pounds of public money to pay for taxis to and from her shopping trips. And while the public was still shaking their heads in disbelief, they were treated to a double whammy with racked up air miles from official government trips used by the family to go on cheap flights!
The irony of it all is that Michael Martin has been chosen to head a review into MP’s expenses later this year. It gives him every chance to sweep his own dodgy allowances under his expensive carpet before the review is published. But it is already getting to be a little hot in his temperature controlled crib due to an untimely public row and the resignation by his former spokesperson Mr Mike Granatt
over Martin’s Wife’s taxi bill!
Mr Michael Martin in not the first public figure to hit the headlines for going over the top with spending public money like water. A few years back Lord Irvine’s face appeared all over the news with his taste for expensive ‘Pugin’ wallpaper, of which the tax payer forked out £300 pound per toll to slap up the walls of Irvine’s residence? He was horrified about the possibilities of a man like him going to B&Q for his wallpaper!!
