Boris Johnson has found himself in the public’s firing line after it was revealed close to £100,000 was spent on two paintings for No.10.

Kate Nicholson www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

The accounts from the Government’s Art Collection fund – which is reinforced with taxpayers’ money – show that Downing Street spent £70,200 on just one 24in by 28in painting by Irish artist Cathy Wilkes.

Another £18,775 was spent on a set of four black and white photographs by installation Irish artist Willie Doherty, according to a report from the Daily Mirror.

The two works were apparently purchased to honour the century that has passed since the establishment of Northern Ireland.

The news has arrived weeks after the government cut £20-a-week from universal credit and introduced a real-terms pay cut for teachers and police officers.

Downing Street claimed the “majority” of the cash for the artworks came from donors and refused to say how much money came from the public purse.

Unsurprisingly, opposition MPs and the public are less than happy about the news.

Labour MP Neil Coyle tweeted: “As his government cuts universal credit and freezes frontline nurse/police pay, Johnson has found more money to treat himself. Again.

“He could not be more out of touch.”

Labour MP Emma Lewell-Buck also told the Mirror: “The selfishness of the prime minister is galling.

“When shelves were bare in my local food banks, businesses have gone to the wall, public sector and key workers have suffered pay freezes and cuts, his priority is once again himself.” 

One member of the public took to Twitter and asked: “How will these paintings benefit the taxpayer?”

Another said: “This is simply awful.”

A government spokesperson has defended the move, and said the Government Art Collection “acquires new works after consulting and securing the approval of an independent expert panel” and that the majority of the funding came from “philanthropic sources” not the taxpayer. 

Conservative Lord Ed Vaizey of Didcot, former culture secretary, also jumped in to support the Prime Minister:

But, even this provoked some backlash online with one Twitter account writing: “That however, doesn’t make it right in these times and any committee should have stopped this in its tracks.”

Greensill Capital: David Cameron made $10m from bank he lobbied Rishi Sunak for

Labour blasts former prime minister’s earnings as ‘utterly ludicrous’ and says rules need to change

www.independent.co.uk 

David Cameron made $10m (£7.2m) from Greensill Capital before the financial firm collapsed, it has been revealed.

Documents seen by the BBC’s Panorama programme show the former Conservative prime minister cashed in $4.5 shares in 2019, was paid a $1m annual salary as a part-time “adviser”, and also got a $700,000 bonus.

The company left investors and UK taxpayers facing huge losses after collapsing.

Mr Cameron hit the headlines in relation to the bank after it emerged he was using his closeness to current cabinet ministers to try to persuade them to underwrite its loans with taxpayer cash.

He was unsuccessful in his approaches, though the bank was ultimately given access to another Covid-19 loan facility.

Mr Cameron has been cleared of breaking any lobbying rules over the affair, but MPs said he showed a “significant lack of judgement”.

Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “It is utterly ludicrous that David Cameron walked away with $10m for two-and-a-half years’ part-time work for a company that collapsed, risking thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money.

“The fact that David Cameron was cleared of any wrongdoing, proves that the rules that are supposed to regulate lobbying are completely unfit for purpose. It’s created a wild west where the Conservatives think it’s one rule for them and another for everyone else.”

She added: “The system causes more harm than good by giving a veil of legitimacy to the rampant cronyism, sleaze and dodgy lobbying that is polluting our democracy under Boris Johnson and the Conservatives.

“Labour will ban former prime ministers from ever taking on lobbying jobs after they leave office. We will overhaul the current broken system and replace it with an Integrity and Ethics Commission that will stamp out sleaze.

“This is money most of us cannot even imagine, but for David Cameron it was just a part time gig using his Tory contacts for huge personal gain.”

Mr Cameron’s spokesman said: “He acted in good faith at all times and there was no wrongdoing in any of the actions he took.”

He added that the former prime minister “did not receive anything like the figures quoted by Panorama”.

From a Budleigh correspondent:

I am sure that there are worst examples than this in villages and towns near you but this example in Budleigh Salterton demonstrates what is happening to the housing stock in beautiful Devon.

 We all have cottages built to house the manual workers in our neighbourhoods. Some are older than others. In the older villages in the Otter Valley, like East Budleigh, they were thatched, cob cottages. In later settlements, like Budleigh Salterton, they were Victorian terraces. They were mostly 2 up and 2 down with outside amenities. 

These, in the middle of the last century, were the first homes for many local youngsters. This was followed by the urban middle classes starting to buy up these properties for their holiday homes. Where now do the local youngsters go to live? Margaret Thatcher had allowed council housing stock to be sold off at a discount without replacement by the local authority. So we have fewer council houses, a disastrous scenario. The price of properties rocket. The contemporary “manual worker” earns a very basic wage and can’t afford to rent and definitely can’t afford to buy. We are told that new developments will supply affordable homes. And then what happens? In Budleigh 30 affordable homes on an estate is reduced to 5. How many affordable homes are there in Cranbrook? How many in the new estates of Exmouth?

But now in 2021 this has been made so much worse by the proliferation of Airbnb. Holiday rentals are at a premium, so kick out the long term tenants and make a tremendous killing with the holiday trade. Result that even the essential keyworker has nowhere to rent long term.

Budleigh Salterton has an interesting case. In Victorian times 2 blocks of red brick terraced cottages were built in Granary Lane, opposite the gas works. From the 1891  census we find one of the terraces, Jersey Cottages, had two dwellings with 9 people living in a 2-bedroomed cottage. Occupations of the males in the 12 cottages were predominantly labouring and the females were servants. 

We now see that an end of terrace cottage (with garage and extension) which sold in 2013 for £330,000 has just sold for £725,000. This is way beyond the affordability of a local youngster.

And to exacerbate the situation, local rumour has it that it was heard that “this will make a wonderful Airbnb”. Another loss to the local community and the community spirit of Granary Lane. And more importantly, another house less for permanent home ownership.

Bizarrely, holiday lets are required to have planning permission to convert into a permanent dwelling, but not the other way around. We need, as a matter of urgency, to have planning permission for permanent dwellings to convert to second homes and holiday lets.