THE government has wasted more than £8 billion in taxpayers’ cash through its U-turns, by-elections and the scrapping of the northern section of HS2, analysis reveals.

The Labour Party, which published the analysis last night, dubbed the wasted cash the Tories’ “cost of chaos bill.”

Costs included £4.1bn in extra mortgage fees, which started following the brief but disastrous reign of Liz Truss and continued under Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and £2 million in the costs of staging by-elections following the departure of Tory MPs.

A huge £40m has also been spent on VIP helicopter rides hired to ferry about Mr Sunak, Tory ministers and their friends.

And £1.4bn has been lost from the scrapping of the northern section of HS2 for work that will now be of little use.

A full month of working days have also been lost due to government reshuffles, it said.

These have been caused by ministerial resignations, including Dominic Raab who quit amid allegations of bullying, the sacking of extremist home secretary Suella Braverman and the resignations of long-serving ministers like Robert Halfon, who quit just days ago. 

In total, 314 days will be lost because Mr Sunak is too chicken to call a general election, Labour asserted.

Labour’s national campaign co-ordinator Pat McFadden said: “Rishi Sunak has presided over a Conservative Party in chaos and has saddled the taxpayer with the bill. 

“These shocking costs are the result of a party out of ideas, more interested in looking inwards than facing, and delivering for, the country.”

The full cost of chaos under Mr Sunak has been unveiled on a new website costofchaos.co.uk.