It’s not just the MPs who spend public money shamelessly (and sometimes illegitimately) on themselves, apparently in pursuit of their public duties. Wherever someone has a job, it seems, they also have right to make expenses claims, which is only right and proper - they shouldn’t have to dig into their own pockets, after all, if they’re only doing their jobs.
Except in my own little world: as a freelance journalist, I’m lucky to get fees for the columns I write, but I can’t claim for travel or accommodation. So I simply don’t, by and large, travel or stay over, if I can help it - there’s always enough theatre happening on my doorstep in London for me to cover in my weekly review column, and I try to reach the rest of the country by occasionally covering touring productions at places like Wimbledon and Richmond. I didn’t even go to Edinburgh last year. (Some regional theatres - noting that they’re not being visited by critics much — are dangling the carrot now of offering to pay for travel and accommodation, and I have gratefully accepted on occasion).
Of course, I make a big exception and dig into my own pocket to go to New York, as regular readers of this blog will know. But then it’s busman’s holiday for me, and thanks to the divine hospitality of friends, I don’t pay to stay there. (Thank you, Mike and Tim; thank you, Bert). The theatre tickets are arranged through the brilliant press offices there (thank you Boneau/Bryan Brown, the Hartman Group, the Publicity Office, O&M Co, Richard Kornberg PR and others), so there’s only the flight to pay for.
But I’m beginning to think that maybe its time for me to get a public position: yesterday’s revelations that Arts Council England’s chair Liz Forgan claimed £431 for a cab to take her from Stratford-upon-Avon to London after attending Shakespeare’s birthday celebrations could have got me to New York and back with change.
In fact, I’m curious as to exactly which cab company she used: I just got a quote from Addison Lee on their website for a trip from Stratford-upon-Avon to London, and it came to £294.90 (plus a £3.50 credit or debit card surcharge). But the Arts Council defended her use of a cab, though, saying, “She returned to her home in London by taxi because, at the time, performances at the Royal Shakespeare Company regularly finished after the last train to London had departed.”
But surely it would have been simply cheaper for her to stay over a night in Stratford and return the next morning: rooms at the four-star Stratford Hotel are available from £99. Maybe she simply had to be back in London before the next morning - but surely there would have been someone in Stratford that night she could have hitched a lift back with?
But then such perks seem to go with the job. During 2008-9, a period as The Times put it “when the council was slashing funding, or removing it altogether from more than 200 arts organisations,” saw her immediate predecessor, Sir Christopher Frayling making claims that included “£460.72 to be driven to and from Glyndebourne opera house in East Sussex in August 2008”; as well as requesting “reimbursement of £500 for his own leaving present, a framed print by Tracey Emin, plus a further £115 for his farewell drinks.”
As the Guardian’s arts correspondent Charlotte Higgins points out today, “Is it any wonder that the Tories complain about the quango’s use of public funds for administrative costs? We expect better.”
And today’s Guardian continues the theme with a front page story on the BBC’s director of future media and technology Eric Huggers making claims for £638.73 and £538.45 for the hire of a limo service on two days in California last June. Calculated at the exchange rate at the time, that means they respectively cost $1,036.42 and $889.52. According to a BBC spokesperson quoted in the story, those charges “reflect typical day rates for the hire of a car with driver during Erik’s business trip in the US. This ensured time spent was used as effectively as possible, enabling the maximum number of meetings to be scheduled and to enable work to continue between appointments in the car.”
The Guardian goes on to point out, “Thanks to its strict policy on endorsements, alas, the corporation is unable to reveal the supplier or type of car used by Huggers, but a brief investigation by the Guardian hints at the level of ingenuity required to spend more than $1,000 in one day on a cab. San Francisco Car Service, for instance, quotes an hourly rate within the Bay Area of $50, exclusive of fees. At Virgin Limo, an eight-hour hire in the San Francisco area of a chauffeured sedan ‘with full leather interior, dual climate controls, power points for laptops computers and cellular phones’, inclusive of fuel surcharge, tolls and tip, would cost $626.40. Ten hours in a ‘Turtle top limo-van’, however, with DVD player, conference player, and ‘luxurious reclining leather seats’, would take his bill to $1,010.25.”
Now that the MPs have been exposed, it’s clearly time we interrogated the expenses claims of our publicly funded arts providers as well.
Mark, it concerns me that you are so proud and ready to admit you only go to theatre on your doorstep. It begs the question, is The Stage, or the Sunday Express for Londoners only? Surely you have a duty to extend beyond the M25?
It seems strange to me that a theatre critic, with a passion for the artform, will only go and see some of the best theatre in the country if someone pays for him to get there. In addition to this, your presence was very much missed in Edinburgh this year and I hope to see you back in 2010.
Bertie, I'm not "proud" of the fact that I can't get out of London much. It's just an economic reality. THE STAGE has an extensive network of regional critics already and provides arguably the widest coverage of regional theatre of any single publication, so doesn't need me to travel for them; and I just don't have the funds to support it myself regularly. I go as far afield as I can, but there are also restrictions on space and time.
Reminds me of the story about the late, great Jeffrey Bernard filing an expense claim in the 1960s for "Entertaining Mr Sloane', when he was, I think, on the Mirror. Unfortunately for Bernard the expense clerk happened to be an aficionado of the West End and he got fired.
Bertie, it's such a shame that the unimaginative provincialism, which you seem to be the poster-boy for, is stronger than ever. Mark does see abit of regional theatre but he is a London-based critic. Therefore his sails will neccessarily be tied to the West End mast. The UK theatre scene, to a large degree, revolves around London. Deal with it. If you don't like the way the cookie crumbles, find a different biscuit to chew on.
Dear Mark - You are welcome at my NY apartment any time. Which reminds me -- your bill for the past four visits is past due. My UK solicitor should be at your door shortly...