ISRAELI Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein has ordered a criminal investigation into excessive spending at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s residences.

Monday’s announcement followed a report by the state comptroller, an official watchdog, citing large sums of public money spent on food, furniture, cleaning and gardening at Mr Netanyahu and his wife’s official residence in Jerusalem and their private home in the coastal city of Caesarea.

Cleaning expenses in that home alone averaged more than £1,350 a month in taxpayers’ money, according to the February report, even though the couple only spent the occasional weekend there.

Purchases of garden furniture for their private home may also have broken the law.

Mr Netanyahu has long been perceived as a cigar-smoking, cognac-drinking socialite and his wife is infamous for her own expensive tastes and alleged abusive behaviour towards staff.