ANGELA Rayner was left red-faced yesterday after lecturing the Tories on wasting public money – while using the iPad she claimed on expenses.
A Labour stunt attacking Government credit card spending backfired when their own MPs came under scrutiny.
The party’s deputy was forced to defend billing taxpayers £2,000 for personalised Apple AirPods and an iPad, revealed by the Sun in 2021.
As the tables were turned, Ms Rayner squirmed on Times Radio: “It was free to personalise them. The equipment – I'm actually using the equipment right now – as I'm speaking to you, the iPad is what I'm using to do my job and have been.”
Labour yesterday released a dossier exposing £145million spent in a single year on Whitehall procurement cards.
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The party accused the Conservatives of presiding over “a culture of lavish spending” and highlighted tens of thousands frittered on 5-star hotels.
But Ms Rayner admitted that she, Sir Keir Starmer and other shadow cabinet Ministers would happily stay in lavish haunts should they win power.
She said: “In principle if it’s required as part of their job and part of their security then absolutely.”
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The Tories also hit back that Labour’s plan to create an Office for Value for Money would only blow more cash on another quango.
Transport Minister Richard Holden said: “Their solution to this issue seems to be straight out of Yes, Minister, to set up a new department, essentially of administrative affairs to look at these – what's already happening within departments.
“That's not more transparency, that's more bureaucracy. And I think the last thing we want to see at the moment is more Whitehall mandarins checking what other Whitehall mandarins are doing.”
And the Conservatives also claimed Labour spent half a million asking costly parliamentary questions already in the public domain.
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