Bums on seats are important I guess!

When Margaret Beckett took over at the newly formed Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in 2001, it's spending budget for furniture (British made no less), was £634,715.24p.

When she left the Department to go to Foreign and "oh f*ck" Commonwealth Office, the spend on British made furniture she had managed to triple the budget to £1,800,549.93. In the year that young David Miliband has been there, he's managed to increase it by £63,354.85.

Now I'm not for a minute passing judgement on this you understand. After all, we are facing an obesity crisis in Britian and it's quite possible that this has caused a large increase in broken chairs within DEFRA. What's more I don't know whether this figure covers the cost of mirrors during Margaret Beckett's tenure.

I imagine the farmers waiting for their payments will be pleased to know that DEFRA is doing it's bit to support the British furniture industry though.

Update: I've just been reminded of by an anoymous poster about this incident in Newcastle at the DEFRA office that was meant to do the farm payemtns. Perhaps some of the furniture went there after they trashed it? Shame on me for not remembering this incident!