Never out of the press for long The Public has made yet another appearance in the Express & Star today as it turns out that over £25,000 of taxpayers’ money has been paid to musicians performing at the venue. Not including those who performed at events staged by Public... Read more...
In an excellent column by Iain Martin in today's Telegraph, Sir Michael Caine is quoted denouncing the new 50% top rate of tax. Sir Michael goes on to say that he, undoubtedly like so many other wealthy and successful Britons, will be leaving the country if the tax burden continues... Read more...
It was the Tories' Spring Forum in Cheltenham over the weekend, and the keynote speech from David Cameron featured some encouraging proposals. Indeed, some of them were so encouraging that the Guardian reported that it seemed like "the TaxPayers' Alliance is now writing Conservative party policy". So what were the... Read more...
Dudley councillors are already hoping for a 20% rise in their allowances and now it’s looking as though they’ll be further draining the public purse as 72 of them are in line to receive expensive Blackberry phones at a cost of £18,000 (Express & Star). The council claim that equipping elected representatives... Read more...
Since the Budget announcement last week, most of Alistair Darling’s predictions have been found to be well wide of the mark. His contention that the UK economy will have contracted by 1.6% in the first quarter of this year was undermined almost immediately by the ONS; his borrowing projections were... Read more...
On Friday the Government released new immigration rules for Ghurkha’s who served in the British Army prior to 1997. Previous regulations had been deemed unlawful by the High Court, but the new rules have proven equally controversial. Ghurkha veterans who retired before 1997 - more than 30,000 – will... Read more...
These days you don't even get a nice certificate to keep A question we've been hearing a lot over the last few days is how on earth is the government ever going to repay all this debt it's taking on?The short answer is that it's not going to.Consider the history of HM Goverment debt.On... Read more...
It seems that Dudley councillors will soon be laughing all the way to the bank as the Express & Star reveals that they’re in line for a 20% raise in their allowances despite the fact that many of their electorate will be facing redundancy or pay cuts in the current... Read more...
Gordon Brown has a funny understanding of the way charities and volunteering work. He has been talking again today about his enthusiasm for involving young people in such activities. That's all well and good, but he seems to have missed the point of voluntary work. That point, of course,... Read more...
Kings Fund Chief Executive Niall Dickson commented yesterday that the 2009 Budget must be a ‘wake up call for the NHS’, forcing it to improve efficiency before spending cuts of £2.3 billion are introduced in 2011. But as a consequence of Darling’s announcement yesterday, NHS Hospital Trusts are expected to... Read more...
In one of the more mean-minded moves in his Budget, Alistair Darling has decided to claw back tax relief on pension contributions for higher-earners (those with an income over £150,000 pa) from 2011. But the measure really comes into force from Budget Day, because the Government plans to implement regulations... Read more...
Some of you may remember that back in November, upon learning about the top rate of income tax was being increased to 45%, I said that Alistair Darling had sounded the death knell of ambition in this country. Well today, things just got a whole lot worse. The Chancellor... Read more...
No-one expected Sir Ken Boston's session with the Commons' Children, Schools and Families Committee to be dull, but few probably expected him to go as far he did. Ed Balls (the DCSF secretary of state) was accused of 'sexing up' evidence given to an inquiry into the SATs fiasco, and... Read more...
Government ministers have led the pack in condemning banks for failing to come clean about the true value of the toxic assets on their balance sheets. But is the Government any better itself? Alistair darling has claimed to be “transparent” in confessing that the banking bailout will cost us... Read more...
Despite earlier government assurances, taxpayer losses on bank bailouts are going to be huge. Yesterday, the IMF said that UK taxpayers can expect to lose £200bn, or 13.4% of our GDP. Needless to say, the government's version is rather different. Indeed, they were so embarrassed by the IMF's figure that... Read more...
Following the release of further details, please see comments below this blog. Today, the Chancellor announced plans to compensate owners of vehicles over 10 years old who scrap those cars with £2000 toward the purchase of a new vehicle. The number of cars over ten years old in the... Read more...
Darling's budget projections are based on some wholly implausible assumptions about public spending. Post the next election he forecasts that current spending growth will fall to 0.7% pa in real terms (2011-12 onwards). That's a virtual halving from the 1.2% pa he incorporated in November's Pre-Budget Report. Yet while real... Read more...
Frightening statistics from today's budget for 2009 reveal the extent of Brown's debt mountain. The revised borrowing figures for the public sector between the years 2008-09 to 2013-014 exceed the combined real terms (RPI-adjusted) borrowing required to defeat Napoleon (1793-1815), the Kaiser (1914-1918) and Hitler (1939-1945). The TPA understands that... Read more...
In his Budget speech, Alistair Darling announced a number of policies that he hopes will support growth in green industries. The key measure is "£1bn to help us combat climate change, by supporting low carbon industries and green collar jobs." Those industries already get massive subsidies through policies such... Read more...
There should be a health warning on the Chancellor’s forecast; “Do not believe.” Fair enough, the fall in UK GDP of 3.5 per cent for 2009 looks reasonable but, for the economy to achieve growth of 1.75 per cent in 2010 it would require an extraordinarily vigorous bounce back, which... Read more...
In response to the 2009 Budget Speech, which committed British taxpayers to record levels of debt, TaxPayers' Alliance Chief Executive Matthew Elliott said:“This Budget commits taxpayers to a terrifying amount of debt that will burden ordinary families for decades to come. The Government’s proposals are totally inadequate to deal with... Read more...
John Redwood makes a powerful case that the Chancellor needs to force the public sector to live within its means: Read more...
This morning the unemployment figures have sadly gone up yet again, now at 2.1 million. As the government continues to squeeze the productive sector of the economy, it spends your money on subsidising expensive non-jobbers. Our pick of the non-job of the week from the 460+ jobs on offer... Read more...
At last the Government has woken up to the severity of public anger over abuse of MPs' expenses. For a while they seemed to think it was just a nightmare that would vanish when they turn the bedside lamp on, but finally the true reality has sunk in. Harriet Harman... Read more...