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The head of the Arts Council claimed £431 for a taxi ride after a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The trip, from a night in Stratford-upon-Avon celebrating Shakespeare's birthday, to Dame Liz Forgan's London home cost the taxpayer more than £4 a mile.
The fare, released under a Freedom of Information request, has infuriated campaign groups because it came in a period when the Arts Council was slashing funding or removing it altogether from more than 200 organisations.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: “These expenses are indefensible. At a time when public services are staring at cuts, people will find it hard to understand why they should pay for Arts Council bigwigs to live the high life.”
The Arts Council said: “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. She had four meetings while there.”
Reader views (19)
She's a former managing director of BBC radio, which is probably where she developed a taste for an expense-account lifestyle. BBC management is crammed with people taking taxis because they are too self-important to take a bus or tube train, ride a bike, or drive their own car like the rest of us.
In an interview Forgan once said “If there's one thing that really enrages me it's the idea that the arts are a luxury. The word summons up the vision of people swathed in mink getting out of Rolls-Royces, and the reality of the arts is that it's devoted people living on fourpence-ha'penny who passionately love what they do."
Except that the fourpence-ha'peny lifestyle obviously doesn't appeal to her personally. I bet a lot of people running little poetry magazines would have been glad of that £431 she has frittered away on an entirely unnecessary taxi ride.
If Gordon Brown had the slightest understanding of the public mood in a recession he would see that she was forced out. He hasn't, of course.
But it's good that more and more of this kind of thing is coming out into the open, when ordinary people are being told they have to make sacrifices.
- Jon, London, 09/02/2010 12:06
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PLent more like her in the arts and charities industry, can the Standard please re run this story with her high salary included please.
Bet she's on at least £80K
- P Staker, London, 09/02/2010 09:34
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And they say we London Taxi's are expensive !!! I think i should relocate to Stratford Upon Avon if they get prices like that! A fixed price from London Heathrow to Birmingham is only £250,and S.U.A is well before that.
- Jamesy, The London Cabbie., London, 09/02/2010 01:28
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What do you expect, a Guardianista who workeded at the BBC. Troughing is second nature to the likes of Forgan, now a typical labour quangocrat.
- Andy, Calgary, 08/02/2010 20:36
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Then you stay overnight, dear. You stay overnight in a B & B. or cheap hotel. Duh! Or is that beneath you now you're a Dame? Pantomime Dame, more like.
- Janet, London, UK, 08/02/2010 16:48
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Taxi for Liz Horgan! Next stop: planet reality.
- Nobby Clark, Perth, the Scottish one, 08/02/2010 15:39
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This is exactly the type of woman we want to clear out of public office.
- R.F.York, Yorks, UK, 08/02/2010 14:05
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Another depressing example of the ruling classes of Gordon Brown - arrogant, superior and wasteful. How much more of this is there going on - if the deficit is anything to go by, this abuse must be widespread. It's easy to spend it if you don't have to earn it.
- Nick Fletcher, Sydenham, London, 08/02/2010 13:58
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Unbelievable. When we went to Stratford we paid for a B&B overnight and the cost of petrol to and from London out of our own pocket of taxed income. I must be in the wrong job as there is no one else to whom I can charge my expenses. If even Ms Forgan was on legitimate business there are cheaper ways to get home.
- Strongbow Sullivan, Paris, France, 08/02/2010 13:20
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What are you moaning about? It's only money - other peoples money!
- Jules_London, london, 08/02/2010 13:17
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So its not just the banking sector and parliament that has greedy, selfish people working in them then?
Its not about the amount its the belief that she had the right to undertake such a journey and at someone else's expense. What type of country are we living in?
- Mikkiduk, Hackney, London., 08/02/2010 12:45
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the elite live in a parallel world to normal people,we are the drones that pay for this nonsense , we should do what the French did to these ponce's
- Peter Woods, torre chianca, Italy, 08/02/2010 12:36
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She could have caught the 11 pm train from Stratford to Paddington. Or she could have stayed overnight and caught a train the next day. The 6.10 am would have got her to her desk in time.
Not that I see how celebrating Shakespeare's birthday is supposed to help modern theatre, art or writing.
This extravagant freeloading woman should be sacked.
- Jon, London, 08/02/2010 12:07
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Obviously an area where no B & B's or Travel Lodges are then
- Steve, London, 08/02/2010 11:32
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Alan, I thinks it's about excessive claims.
If she had thought about this and planned this then it would not have cost that sum, simple.
- Gavin, London, 08/02/2010 11:22
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Oink Oink!!
- Steve, Brentford, 08/02/2010 11:15
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Pure robbery of the taxpayers money. Ordinary people struggle to pay their bills, do not have enough money to buy food. Cancel all those shows during the recession so that no more taxpayers money is used for those stupid events
- Chloe, london uk, 08/02/2010 10:56
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More and more jumping on the Brown bandwagen
- Richard Edmunds, Rayleigh UK, 08/02/2010 10:46
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Surely this is more about poor transport infrastructure in the UK than excessive claims for taxis.
- Alan Reece, Hythe, Kent, 08/02/2010 10:41
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