Taxpayers dished out more than £4,000 on a trend lectern used by Liz Truss during her extremely short time at No 10.
The fancy stand is made up of a stack of twisted wood blocks which some had compared to a Jenga tower. The lectern was made special for Ms Truss with two versions being crafted; one paid by the Conservative Party and another by the government.
Responding to a Freedom of Information request by the Mirror, Downing Street revealed that £4,175 of taxpayers' money was thrown at the creation of the lectern. Many may recognise the expensive monolith from when Ms Truss used it to address the nation following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
It was also featured during an awkward press conference after Kwasi Kwarteng was sacked as chancellor following the steep decline of the economy related to her government's policies. Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “Not only did Liz Truss and the Conservatives topple the British economy and spike mortgage repayments, they’ve left taxpayers’ picking up the tab for this personalised lectern.
“Her choice of a Jenga design should have been a warning sign of the chaos she was about to unleash. This grotesque monument to failure should serve as a reminder that the Tories should never again be trusted with the nation’s finances.”
During her less than two months in power, Ms Truss' government sunk the pound and caused mortgage rates to skyrocket following her catastrophic mini-Budget. Despite attempting to pick up the pieces with a series of U-turns on nearly all of her policies, she was eventually forced out by her fellow MPs, leaving behind her legacy as the shortest-serving PM in history.
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