Tom

Speaker Lindsay Hoyle was on a jolly to the British Virgin Islands when he says he learned Peter Mandelson was apparently a flight risk (unlikely). No surprise he was in the Caribbean. Long been branded ‘long-haul Hoyle’ at our expense, spending more than £320,000 of taxpayers’ cash on foreign jaunts up until last summer since becoming Speaker in 2019. He spent more than £200,000 on first and business class plane tickets plus tens of thousands more spent on chauffeur-driven cars, stays at luxury five-star resorts and restaurants. During a previous Caribbean tour in March 2023, he shelled out nearly £5,500 chartering private planes to hop between the islands of St Maarten, Montserrat, Anguilla and Antigua. In 2024, he spent £22,000 for a five-day trip to meet his counterpart in the Cayman Islands, staying at the Westin Grand, where his room was billed at £679 per night. His snout. Our trough. They really do take us for fools.

This is desperate stuff