Servants paid for by taxpayer

Servants paid for by taxpayer

Sir John Butterfill built a servants' wing at his country home in Surrey for the gardener and his wife with taxpayers' money.

In the beginning there was the viscount's moat. Then, as the expenses saga developed, there was a floating duck island funded by the taxpayer on behalf of a knight of the shire.

And now, just as the nation was beginning to tire of the great 2009 expenses scandal, we have servants' quarters paid for out of the public purse.

Sir John Butterfill, a Conservative grandee hoping to serve out his last year as the MP for Bournemouth West, Dorset, in some style, was last night having to embark on the rather vulgar business of explaining how the taxpayer paid for an extension which housed the gardener and the gardener's wife.

John Butterfill claimed £17,000 MPs' expenses for servants' … er, staff quarters (The Guardian, 28 May 2009)