Did the previous government act against civil service advice?
The in-coming coalition government has made a number of potentially controversial and potentially damaging claims over the last few days regarding the spending patterns of the last Labour government. There have been accusations of overspending, against civil service advice, there have been accusations of tinkering with official debt figures to give a potential better picture as well as a number of other hard-hitting comments. So did the previous government act against civil service advice in the final throes of its tenure?
While there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the former Chancellor of the Exchequer or the former Prime Minister ignored civil-service advice regarding spending there are allegations of "crazy" spending in the final days of the last government. However, this could all be a clever ploy by the coalition government to deflect any criticism regarding UK finances and bring the names of Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown back into the public domain.
It also emerged yesterday that the former Chief Sec. to the Treasury Liam Byrne left a note for his replacement in the new government saying "I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left". While many politicians have seen the funny side of this exchange the same cannot be said of UK taxpayers.
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