Guido’s FOI Unit has obtained the full set of purchases Starmer made for his flat of residence on Downing Street. Totalling over £15,000…
Downing Street says the “Government is legally required to maintain the Downing Street buildings to the high standards appropriate to its Grade 1 and 2 listed status in consultation with Historic England. The listed status, as well as security and other relevant factors, significantly add to the cost of maintenance and repairs, compared to normal properties.” Limbering up…
£14,319.20 was spent on refurbishment alone. Prime Ministers have an annual allowance of “up to £30,000 a year from the public purse to contribute towards the costs associated with maintaining and furnishing of the residency within the Downing Street estate.” Nice. For. Some.
For Starmer the Cabinet Office “offers to furnish the Prime Minister’s residence upon entering office, which was empty, on a modest basis in which case the items are permanently retained by Government. The total figure spent is proactively published in the Cabinet Office’s annual reports and accounts… The items came under budget and do not belong to the Prime Minister.” A £750 armchair, a £1,395 TV and a £363 ottoman walk into a bar…
Here’s the taxpayer’s receipt:
The Phase 1 report of the Southport Inquiry, which came out yesterday, has recommended exploring a partial ban on Virtual Private Networks. There is a big campaign on for this in Parliament…
The report was scathing of agencies and Axel Rudakubana’s family, and concluded that the murders were entirely preventable. Let’s hope the institutional failures are not overlooked as the debate veers towards online activity…
Also featuring in its recommendations section was this:
“Phase 2 should consider age verification for the use of Virtual Private Network (VPN) software and other options to avoid VPNs being used to circumvent the age-related protections in the Online Safety Act 2023.”
Phase 2 will broadly “consider the adequacy of multi-agency systems to address the risk posed by young people whose fixation with and desire to commit acts of extreme violence presents a significant risk to public safety” and make more fulsome recommendations. Expect Labour to bring forward more legislation in response…
As Guido reported Labour has previously supported measures to shut down VPN use. The failures of the police, and other agencies, must not escape serious scrutiny and a robust response…
As Labour gears up to trumpet its cession of more sovereignty to the EU, the Cabinet Office has treated its ‘EU Reset Unit’ staff to an away day. Relax while you can, you’re the gambit that’s meant to save Starmer’s premiership now…
The ‘EU Relations Secretariat’ in the Cabinet Office numbers around 80 staff and is now the heart of Starmer’s pitch to SecurEUcracy. Government insiders tell Guido that the “pampered” secretariat has the “swankiest floor in the building” and regularly hoards the best meeting rooms. Michael Ellam, Head of European and International Economic Affairs and former director of communications for Gordon Brown, is said to have the nicest office of them all…
Along with having facilities to rival ministerial private offices, the secretariat was treated to an away day last Thursday before the government began briefing that an EU single market push was on the way. Nice for some…
The International Monetary Fund has downgraded the UK’s growth forecast by the G7. The IMF’s latest global forecasts have downgraded the UK’s growth projection for this year by 0.5% to only 0.8%…
| Country | 2026 Forecast | Diff. from Jan 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| UK | 0.8 | -0.5 |
| Germany | 0.8 | -0.3 |
| France | 0.9 | -0.1 |
| Italy | 0.5 | -0.2 |
| Japan | 0.7 | 0.0 |
| US | 2.3 | -0.1 |
| Canada | 2.5 | -0.1 |
“In the United Kingdom, inflation, which in 2025 increased partly because of one-off changes in regulated prices, is expected to pick up again temporarily toward 4 percent before returning to target by the end of 2027 as the effects of higher energy prices fade and a weakening labor market continues to exert downward pressure on wage growth.”
It also says the unemployment rate will hit 5.6% this year. Big gulps can be heard from the Treasury…
Ministry of Defence staff racked up £16.3 million on taxpayer-funded procurement cards in March alone, with the spending including £133,000 in restaurants and bars and stays at The Ritz Carlton and Four Seasons. Wasn’t Starmer supposed to snip these cards in half?
The transparency data, quietly published this week, reveals 5,975 transactions on MoD electronic purchasing cards supposedly reserved for “low risk, low complexity” purchases under £12,000. Yet dozens of transactions smash through that limit, including a single £49,859 payment to consultants and a massive £37,705 hotel bill…
Someone even found time for a £11,457 restaurant blowout. Fourteen separate transactions were logged at bars, pubs and nightclubs, totalling over £17,000. One particularly boozy session cost £3,780. There was £2,688 spent at a snooker hall, £1,325 at a cosmetics shop, and over a grand at a florist…
The hotel bill for the month came in at a cool £1.4 million across 712 transactions, with The Ritz Carlton, Four Seasons, Hyatt and assorted Hiltons all featuring. By the way, our Navy basically doesn’t exist…
The day after Starmer U-turned and refused to blame Trump for the war Rachel Reeves told the Mirror:
“Obviously no sensible person is a supporter of the Iranian regime, but to start a conflict without being clear what the objectives are and not being clear about how you are going to get out of it, I do think that is a folly and it is one that is affecting families here in the UK but also families in the US and around the world.”