I was going to leap to the defence of Britain’s senior civil servants whose 1,700 items of hospitality last year were made up mostly of breakfasts, dinners and lunches.
Are events such as “gas industry awards lunch” really proof that mandarins are living the high life? Of course not. (Although yes, there were a handful of trips to opera/theatre/football/cricket/Proms etc).
And then I saw that Michael White at the Guardian has articulated this line of thought already. Worth reading.
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Jim Pickard is the FT's chief political correspondent, having joined the lobby team in January 2008. He has been at the FT since 1999 as a regional correspondent, assistant UK news editor and property correspondent.
Kiran Stacey is an FT political correspondent, having joined the lobby in 2011. He started at the FT as a graduate trainee in 2008, working on desks including UK companies and US equity markets before taking over the FT's Energy Source blog.
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