THE (LEATHER) BOUNDERS

Reeves and Nandy with the leather-clad stationery costing taxpayers thousands

As Rachel Reeves tries to emulate Elon Musk's looming 'government efficiency' role in the Trump administration, an aptly timed news story emphasised just how exuberant and wasteful the British swamp is.  The Chancellor has ordered government departments to target annual savings of 5 per cent - something she reportedly described as 'taking an iron fist to waste'.  On the same day Reeves made her announcement, news broke that one such government department had blown almost £1,200 on a couple of folders - yes, you read that correcly - folders.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport purchased the two leather-bound folders from luxury goods manufacturer Barrow Hepburn & Gale, for the sum of £594 apiece.  BBC News reports that leather-bound folders are available in the House of Commons shop for the more reasonable sum of £30 each.  Unnamed government sources apparently justified the luxury folders as they 'enhance the image of the government'.  The image portrayed is not one that will go down too well with taxpayers who fund these purchases.  The sources added that the folders 'last for years' and are only ordered 'when the need arises'.

At almost £600 a pop, these folders would have to last more than 19 years each in order to economically justify their purchase over the £30 equivalent.

Lisa Nandy heads Culture, Media and Sport, albeit other government departments - including the Treasury - buy the same folders from Barrow Hepburn & Gale.  The famous red box used by the Chancellor is also produced by the same company.  A Freedom of Information request in 2007 revealed that the Blair government spent a whopping £57,260 on leather-bound ministerial boxes over a five year period.  A box made in 2021 under the Johnson government cost taxpayers £1,100.

If Reeves' cost-cutting agenda achieves anything at all - assuming that it is not merely an empty gesture made of hot air -  it will no doubt be a drop in the ocean compared to the radical agenda proposed by Trump's 'Department of Government Efficiency', to be headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy after the new president is sworn in next month.