"Five star luxury of Blairs' police squad: Astonishing £5,000 a week expense claims (right down to £1.19 packet of Percy Pigs)"

"The extraordinary cost to the taxpayer of protecting former Prime Minister Tony Blair as he travels the globe earning his vast fortune can be revealed by The Mail on Sunday today.
His team of bodyguards are costing taxpayers £250,000 a year in expenses alone as they stay in some of the world’s most exclusive locations, running up vast bills for luxury hotels and expensive meals while Mr Blair swells his £20 million personal fortune."

The article continues...

Sources also say that officers are given a generous 24-hour overtime rate while abroad – meaning they are paid even when they are asleep. They are regarded as being on duty around the clock, so get three days’ pay for every day they are abroad – ‘treble bubble’ in police canteen slang.

The revelations will raise new questions about the high cost of providing bodyguards to former politicians and whether wealthy individuals such as Mr Blair should be asked to contribute to the spiralling costs.

The former Prime Minister can earn up to £80,000 an hour for a speaking engagement – which means he could clear his protection team’s annual expenses bill with little over three hours’ work.

Some of the claims made by the pigs:

£464 a night to stay at the elegant Carlyle Hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, where they also claimed £56 for pizzas plus a £5 tip, which was queried by the accounts department.

£150 for limousine hire after a helicopter taking Mr Blair and his bodyguards from New York to Yale University had to turn back in bad weather.

£280 a night for the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem; £348 a night at the Kempinski hotel, Dubai; £180 a night at the Sofitel, Brussels; and £414 a night in the Emirates Palace, Abu Dhabi.

£3,020 in cash to cover expenses for a trip to Sierra Leone in February, which they spent without obtaining receipts.

£6,693 for one officer flying from Jerusalem to Jeddah, then on to Kuala Lumpur, then Indonesia, Singapore and Washington DC on a ‘recce’ trip to assess the security situation for planned future trips by Mr Blair. In the process he stayed in some of the world’s finest hotels, including one night at the Jeddah Hilton which cost £1,264. He was told the room rate was so high as the hotel was full of pilgrims stranded by the volcanic ash cloud that grounded flights.

£4,800 for one month’s expenses by one officer who was forced to stay overseas for 22 days, also because of the volcanic ash disruption.

£38.73 for two white teas, a chocolate milkshake, an ‘Olympic’ breakfast, mixed grill and a rib eye steak at the Little Chef in Bicester, Oxfordshire." -- The Daily Mail

ABSOLUTELY TAKING THE F*CKING P*SS!!!!

Working for these protection squads must be one of the easiest police jobs going. You actually don't arrest anyone. All you do is travel all over the world looking like a complete d*ckhead (wearing Oakley sunglasses with a curly wire coming out of your ear) walking in front of or behind some prat like Blair... doing absolutely f*ck all and put in huge expense claims. WHY ARE WE PAYING FOR THIS??? WHY?

And what is all this about some w*nker claiming £4,800 expenses for the volcanic ash disruption. N and I got caught up in that and we were lucky we didn't get our pay docked.

In Blair's case, the ar*seh*le should be paying for it all himself... but NO! It's heads in the trough again. Get someone else to pay.

Right lets see the cuts being implemented on this total abuse of public spending.

BLOODY DISGUSTING!!!

Rant over.