Nick Clegg was accused of hypocrisy yesterday after it emerged that his team of political advisers has ballooned from three to 14 at a cost to the taxpayer of £900,000 a year.The figure represents the lion’s share of the £1.3million annual bill for the 21 Liberal Democrat special advisers.
Details of the increase, which is another breach of a manifesto promise, were slipped out in a Downing Street statement as MPs broke up for their 47-day summer recess.
In Opposition Mr Clegg pledged that a Lib Dem government would never burden the taxpayer with the bill for special advisers, nicknamed spads.
In September 2009, in a policy document A Better Politics for Less, he pledged: ‘The [Labour] government employs 74 special advisers, an increase of 90 per cent since 1995, at a cost to the taxpayer of £5.9million each year. Read More
