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British officials splurging on taxpayers' money is nothing new, but former foreign secretary James Cleverly might come among the top spenders, having blown up around 165,561 pounds on a trip to Rwanda with officials and a TV crew. That trip, which works out to 655 pounds per person, was for a Quixotic deportation deal of Britain with Rwanda that eventually did not send even a single person to the African nation.

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Cleverly, who was vying for the leadership of Conservatives just recently before being ousted from the race, took the trip in December 2023, according to a report in The Guardian on Monday (Oct 21). The 11-hour trip was to the Rwandan capital of Kigali to sign a deportation deal to house asylum seekers in the African nation.

As per details obtained under a Freedom of Information request, Cleverly used a chartered private jet whose in-flight catering expenses alone were more than 9,800 pounds. The TV crew paid for its own food.

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The catering cost included transporting of cookware. The deal which Cleverly signed at the time was part of the Rwanda Bill introduced by the Tory government, which the new Labour administration of Prime Minister Kier Starmer overturned soon after coming into power.

The bill, described by Labour as a gimmick and a waste of money, was dead on arrival as the then Tory Prime Minister Rishi Sunak could not overcome legal challenges and political opposition to operate the flights that were to have taken the migrants to the African nation.

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The Guardian report also said that during his stint as the former foreign secretary, Cleverly spent more than 22,320 pounds on in-flight catering during a July 2023 journey of five nations, including Japan and Indonesia.

That works out to 1,488 per person. The full cost of the flights for Cleverly and his 14-person entourage was 561,531 pounds.

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The Guardian quoted a Labour Party source as saying that, despite spending 700 million pounds on the Rwanda scheme, including Cleverly’s flight to Kigali, the Tories "did not stop one small boat or deport one single person as a result of that scheme."

“On the contrary, 84,000 people crossed the Channel from the day the scheme was introduced to the day it was scrapped, and the only people who ended up in Rwanda were four volunteers," said the source.

(With inputs from agencies)