Parliament splashes £4 million on traffic marshals

If you, dear reader, have visited parliament in recent years, you might have had the misfortune to be confronted by one of the new-fangled orange traffic marshals popping up around the estate. Given the crumbling state of the Commons, Mr S is constantly querying whether this army of apparatchiks is really necessary – given that most cars crawl through the estate at around five miles per hour. But, alas, it seems that the bosses in the Palace of Westminster know best…

Still, all that ‘elf n safety shtick does come with a price. Steerpike has done some digging and it turns out that the price tag is quite considerable. An impressive £4.3 million has been shelled out to pay for these marshals since April 2019 – the equivalent of more than £2,000 a day, according to several Freedom of Information requests. On being told the figures, one enraged parliamentary staffer responded: ‘Bloody hell – I feel sick.’