Who watches the watchmen? | 7 March 2011

There’s a fuse-meet-flame quality to PoliticsHome’s smart little scoop this morning. Our parliamentarians are already somewhat hacked off with IPSA, the body tasked with overseeing their expenses. So how will they react upon reading that IPSA spent £300,000 of taxpayers’ cash on furbishing their London office? The watchdog’s shopping list includes 25 cabinets (£2,295 each), 14 “relaxer loungers” (£465 each) and a table at £837. It sounds awfully like some of the MPs’ claims that were so controversial in the first place.

IPSA are defending the spending, citing “industry standards” and such. But, whatever, it just fuels the sense that they are an unduly expensive and convoluted answer to the question at hand. With David Cameron threatening to take on the organisation if they haven’t sorted themselves out by April, you’d have thought they might have avoided such self-inflicted wounds. As it is, those relaxer loungers might just collapse under all the office stress and strain.