Go Fig!

Amazing, this revelation from the Sunday Times today. Apparently someone in the House of Commons was authorised to rent, for the new House of Commons extension, twelve fig trees at a cost of £40,000 a year! Why MPs believe that this would be considered as proper use of tax payers money is a complete mystery. As the Americans might say, go figure.

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But hang on a minute. Is this not just another example of how completely wasteful our Westminster machine has become? Not only that, I bet there are other examples of ludicrous and expensive rentals yet to be discovered. While the little people suffer the consequences of an economic slump, our money is being frittered on maintaining twelve of the most hardy and fecund trees in the world. We have complete forests that don't have that much money spent on them. In fact trees were around and happily looking after themselves millions of years before man and money saw the light of day.

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There is no justification for spending such outrageous sums, even in the most affluent of times. The average salary in the UK is £22,000, almost half what it is costing the taxpayer to look after trees that they won't even see, let alone be able to afford. There is clearly a need for Ministers of Parliament to investigate whatever department thought this was a reasonable thing to do and stop these hair-brained and needlessly expensive contracts.

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The Government needs to put the fruits of our labour to much better use than renting a dozen trees for their pleasure. The Americans might say 'go figure' but the UK tax payer is feeling far from philosophical at the moment. Forget go figure. We demand 'go fig'.