UK diplomats cost taxpayers millions

British taxpayers are spending millions of pounds on their diplomats’ luxury expenses each year at a time that Britons are feeling the financial squeeze, a new report shows.

According to an investigation by The Daily Mail, published on Thursday, the UK embassies and consulates spent £8.8 million on lavish dinners and drinks receptions last year. The figure showed an increase of 12 percent since the 2010 general election.

The missions’ spending on school fees for diplomats’ children was also found to be £14.9 million last year, up 14 percent compared with the data recorded in 2010.

Moreover, some £21.5 million was reported to have been spent on the cost of living payments to Britain’s Foreign Office staff.

“Essentially, what we have here is a cabal of public schoolboys who occupy a civil service within a civil service and have neatly side-stepped the necessary austerity measures that the rest of us have to endure,” a whistleblower said.

The revelations come after a recent report warned that the average British household spending has dropped by £18.40 a week since the coalition government came to power in 2010.

According to the 2012 Living Costs and Food Survey, carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), average weekly household expenditure in the UK was £489 last year, down from £507.40 in 2010.

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Source Article from http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/02/343286/uk-diplomats-cost-taxpayers-millions/

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