Liz Truss claims £3000 of taxpayers money for a “business” lunch

I'm sure if she'd asked nicely the chef, at 5 HS could have provided the same meal and drinks at HoC, a bit like outside catering.
Maybe LT just wanted to get away from the office for lunch and also showcase a quintessentially prestigious English members' club. Would she personally have any idea about the prices, other than expensive, when she booked anyway?
I agree the cost is pretty irrelevant here. I just think as someone who wants the top job she could have come up with something more innovative, wacky, to show she had some fresh ideas of her own.

Oh, goodness! Let's just ignore the fact that the government is being run on the 'favours for mates' principle and bicker about the cost...

icanhandthemback - we've already been warned that the US aren't going to do us any favours, unless of course that want to buy yet more businesses in the UK. With profits going back to the US of course.

GrannyGravy13

The lunch was for 10 people including the US trade representative, would you rather she hosted them at the local McDonalds, KFC or Wetherspoon’s?

No. But I would have preferred she host them somewhere cheaper than the £140 per head she eventually got the bill down to, and definitely cheaper than the £300 per head she originally tried to claim. We’ve been conditioned to accept austerity and reduced public services by successive Tory governments. The rise of food banks in a country like the UK in the 21st century is a shameful reflection of how working people cannot make ends meet and we’re warned that 2022 will be even worse due to rising energy prices which will force many into choosing between heating and eating. And in the face of so many ruined livelihoods due to Covid, this kind of behaviour is just taking the p***.

The lunch was for 10 people including the US trade representative, would you rather she hosted them at the local McDonalds, KFC or Wetherspoon’s?

Well yes, if they have not the sense to find some happy medium.

Couldn't agree with you more Barneyoldbat. Anyone who thinks this is OK should get into the real world. Our 2 foodbanks are so busy at the moment and 2 more have opened in the past 2 years, as well as 7 pop up shops in a town of 23,0001

That’s a silly response to this post, still a lot of alcohol (and cost) on (presumably a working) lunch even for 10 people! Vegansrock suggested dining at the HOC instead, a sensible suggestion. Are you condoning this pattern of behaviour?

I think that the problem here, icanhandthemback is the insistence on using a venue owned by a tory donor, rather than the cost of the meal. It's just another example of tory cronyism, as more damagingly seen in the well publicised and eye wateringly expensive contracts for PPE, LFTs etc. obtained for tory friends and donors via a VIP lane...

£140 a head for a working lunch, average of two glasses of wine per person not bad if you can get it.. Wonder how long the lunch lasted and exactly what was produced. Perhaps the £1600 difference in the bill was the tip!

You cannot compare a family on UC to a Government Representative trying to build up a relationship with other nations in the hope of getting a trade deal. The world just doesn't work like that. Maybe it should but it doesn't.
Sadly, this amount of money is a drop in the ocean of the money wasted in Government Departments, the NHS, etc.
I do think that some of the stuff being reported at the moment is just designed to be inflammatory and a grand effort to destabilise this Government. The news has become a moan fest coupled with speculation. Let's concentrate on the really damaging stuff like LFT's being supplied by one source who closed down just as COVID cases were soaring. Quite frankly, I think that is criminal when our whole strategy against Omicron is based on testing, testing, testing.

Alegrias1

Oh I'm all for MPs learning foreign languages, that can only be a good thing. Just find it a bit weird that someone needs to spend £22k to learn a language he already knows

Oooh if anyone would like to give me £22k I’ll teach them Italian !

I agree with Lupin: the Civil Servants did well to stand up to Truss over this outrageous bill for lunch, all the more so since there have been complaints of Ministers bullying officials in this government. It stinks.

these people think they're beyond reproach and the treasury is their own personal bank account

Thank you OP for focusing on this.
I had been vaguely aware of this but when I really think about it I find it infuriating. We are in times of record national debt. Many of us are struggling to manage financially. How insensitive a practice to schmooze anyone, anywhere in this way. It leaves a bad smell.
The Civil Servants who refused to pay up did well.

And she is favourite for Boris's seat. Clearly, nothing will change.

Totally shocking but no surprise from this Government! An aspiring future Prime Minister I hear.....heaven help us!

Corruption..

go on jump on me,, the lot of them , those who aren`t , get dragged into it..

Do as I say, not as I do! and they, ie. the media, uses the term

"they earn it" gosh the English language has so deteriorated.

And there is the oddity that £3000 was reduced to £1400 for the foreign secretary.? Either £3k was the true cost of this meal or it was not. Who's going to pay full whack at 5 Hertford Street without a challenge after this?

If I were a supporter of this govt or of Liz Truss I'd lie low until the storm passes.

Of course it's disgraceful: wine at £153/bottle? It's clearly excessive expenditure. What fine negotiations could be conducted in an alcoholic haze? Gravy train stuff! Snouts in the trough! One rule for them and another for the rest of us.

why on earth would people feel annoyed a lunch for 10 people would cost more than hard earned month salary!

Some of you also seem very detached from ordinary younger families lives

. . . if it suits you to think it is due to some kind of reverse snobbery you are wrong

It's being seen as reverse snobbery with a side order of Northern oikishness, from the sound of it ?.

Lawks a mercy! You could get eel pie and mash wiv change to buy a cuppa char for our 'ole street for that kinda dosh, guv!

How come it costs that much. That is the robbery.

Oh I'm all for MPs learning foreign languages, that can only be a good thing. Just find it a bit weird that someone needs to spend £22k to learn a language he already knows

Amazing isn’t it? That Parliament pays out for any MP who wishes to learn a language or upgrade their fluency in any given language.That said, I don’t think all that many will bother to avail themselves of it ( thankfully.)

For the last time, I am neither concerned or impressed by what this dinner cost, it is not exceptional for a decent restaurant. What I am concerned about is other similar standard venues being rejected in favour of one owned by a Tory donor, but if it suits you to think it is due to some kind of reverse snobbery you are wrong.