UK handed Boris Johnson and Liz Truss aides nearly £3M in exit pay

LONDON — Political chaos is expensive.

Top advisers to Boris Johnson and Liz Truss — whose governments both imploded in spectacular fashion in 2023 — cost taxpayers almost £3M in severance payments as they left office, transparency figures released Thursday evening by the British government show.

An annual report on special advisers — temporary civil servants who add political and policy heft to a minister’s team — shows that £1 million-worth of exit payments were made to departing SpAds in the wake of Truss’ disastrous 49-day premiership.

Meanwhile some £1.9 million in severance payments went to ex-SpAds when Johnson left the stage as prime minister.

That compares to just £100,000 in severance payments to former special advisers handed out in the comparatively calm year of 2021-22.

Separate disclosures from the U.K.’s finance ministry Thursday also put a hefty price-tag on Liz Truss ill-fated battle against the country’s economic “orthodoxy.”

Tom Scholar — the experienced top Treasury official sacked just two days into the Truss administration — earned a bumper severance payout of £335,000, according to the Treasury’s annual report.

The experienced official had held the top role in Britain’s finance ministry since July 2016, but was relieved of his duties as Truss tried to pitch herself against decades of Treasury thinking.

She subsequently launched a debt-funded, tax-cutting “mini-budget” which was aimed at jump-starting economic growth but which spooked markets and helped end her premiership.

The Treasury figures show that 23 former ministers received severance pay last year, testament to the huge churn in public office as Britain cycled through three prime ministers.

Truss’ Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng was given a £16,876 exit payout for his 38-day stint.

And Chris Pincher — a former government whip who left Johnson’s government after being accused of inappropriate sexual conduct — took home £7,920 in severance pay.