Thaindian News

London, Apr 16 (ANI): Tory party co-chairman Baroness Warsi, the first Muslim woman to serve in the British Cabinet, had used a taxpayer-funded official visit to Pakistan to attend a family wedding in Mir Pur last February, but the Foreign Office made no official announcement about the issue.

Warsi was on a four-day visit to Pakistan, supposedly to discuss immigration and see the devastation situation caused by last year’s floods. However, slipped in the middle of the day from Islamabad along with her security officials to attend the wedding of her brother-in-law’s son, the Daily Mail reports.

She reportedly did not pay for the cost of this security when they made a 160-mile round trip to the Regency Hotel to join her nephew and 350 guests for a lavish party.

The paper quoted hotel insiders as saying that guests were woken up early in the morning on the wedding day to move their parked cars in preparation for her arrival.

A hotel source said that arrangements for her security had led to chaos in the hotel

“There were no parliamentarians from the area at the wedding. It was solely a family function. She came all the way from Islamabad and went back in the evening,” he added.

Although the Foreign Office published extensive details of her visit including pictures of Lady Warsi attending a briefing on the flood relief effort, riding in a helicopter over flood-affected areas and visiting a girls’ school, but no mention was made of Lady Warsi attending the wedding.

Labour MP John Mann expressed outrage over the fact that she had used taxpayers’ money to attend the lavish family wedding.

“It is outrageous if taxpayers were forced to pick up any part of the tab for the Conservative party chairman to attend a family wedding,” he added.

A spokesman for the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “When it’s a Government trip there will obviously be a bill passed on to the taxpayer but extra costs shouldn’t be racked up by using a security team for personal events.” (ANI)