DCLG publish all payments over £500 for '08-'09

The Department for Communities and Local Government have now backdated their spending transparency (and that of their Quangos) by another year to cover 2008/09. Also for April-June this year.

Among the items is that the Audit Commission spent £13,470 at Leiths at London Zoo, £16,000 at Newbury racecourse and £3,000 at Exeter race course.

The DCLG spending for '08-'09 included £180,000 on a press cuttings, £55,000 on opinion polls, £22,000 at Reubens at the Palace Hotel and £1 million on Blue Rubicon PR agency. Will Hazel Blears, the Communities Secretary at the time, make an apology for this "wicked and malicious" abuse of taxpayers money? Plus, in April this year, £1,285.80 at the All Star Bowling Alley. John Denham was responsible by then. This morning he said Eric Pickles was "cutting too fast and too deep". Does he think taxpayer funded bowling for civil servants should carry on?

The Government Office of the Regions spent £138,000 on Mori and £8,000 at City Inn.

Local Government Minister Grant Shapps says:

"It's amazing what Labour ministers got up to behind closed doors. If they weren't living it up in lavish hotels they were spending millions on PR agencies and vanity opinion polls to work out why they were so unpopular.

"The mantra was buy now pay later and let the taxpayer foot the bill. The very least Ed Miliband can do is apologise for Labour's outrageous spending spree in their dying days."