Boris not the first to lavishly redecorate

YOUR question ‘Do you care who paid for Boris’s new curtains?’

Answer: In a nutshell, is it that important when compared to other examples from our parliamentary past? Oh what short memories the Labour snipers have, so let me refresh those memories.

Under Tony Blair in 1997, his friend, one Lord Derry Irvine, spent £650,000 redecorating his grace and favour Lord Chamberlain’s residence in the House of Lords, including wallpaper at £300 a roll and curtains at £200 a metre, all told at way over one million pounds at today’s prices. All out of the public purse.

Then in 2011 Mr Speaker Bercow, the darling of the Labour Party, spent over £31,000 of taxpayers’ money refurbishing his grace and favour apartments in Westminster plus another £4,000 on designer plants for his terrace, plus another £37,000 on a portrait of himself in his Speaker regalia.

Another Labour appointed Speaker, Michael (Gorbals Mick) Martin, was hounded out of his Speaker’s role for trying his best (thankfully without success) to stop MPs’ expenses grand larceny from coming to light. Yet more public money attempted to be hidden under the carpet. Not a very good record for HM Opposition!

So yes, in the grand scheme of things the question of the relatively small scale of ‘Who paid for Boris’s curtains?’ pales into insignificance when compared to the fleecing of the public purse by some of the Party Opposite. It would seem that many politicians of all persuasions are picking the pocket of the nation with no conscience at all. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

It’s time for our politicians to start serving the nation, not the other way round, and taking their noses out of the trough. It is, after all their duty to the British electorate! But there again, the only duty many of them seem to be interested in is duty free! Edward Kynaston

Lydney