The Express & Star website is already reporting today that The Public arts centre in West Bromwich could be fed up to another £3million, despite the fact we have no confirmation as to when (and if!) the main gallery will open. The national Arts Council met yesterday to decide... Read more...
I returned home to Wales yesterday, to give evidence to the Independent Panel Review on AMs' pay and expenses. Some of you may remember that I gave evidence at the first public meeting in Llandudno, back in December. The panel, headed up by Sir Roger Jones, after taking on board our... Read more...
A truly disgraceful story from the Express today (not online, page 22 for reference) perfectly describes the inhumane, bureaucratic nature of local government at its worst. Wealden council have rejected a planning bid for a grandfather to build a specially designed bungalow for his grandson on his own property. Why... Read more...
Just because Brighton and Hove Council acts as if there isn’t a recession doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. The economy’s down the pan and what do the numpties running the council do – they shell out half a million of your hard-earned pounds to the chief executive so he can... Read more...
Stoke-on-Trent City Council have once again demonstrated just how skewed their priorities can be by announcing that they will be axing a “lifeline” support service to disabled children and their families the same week as they establish two ‘inquiry panels’ to look at modifying residents attitudes to junk food and... Read more...
There are bad ideas and then there are utterly disgraceful ideas. This weekend it was reported that the Government's advisory group on the legacy of the Troubles in Northern Ireland has come up with one of the latter. The families of victims killed in the Troubles, they said, should be... Read more...
It is reported in the Telegraph today that the Tories are going to make civil servants accountable for wasting taxpayers money. In a speech today, George Osborne will set out plans to punish or sack government employees who knowingly waste public money. Well done, George! As we have argued for years... Read more...
On Wednesday the WMTPA took to the streets of Birmingham to petition for a cut in local council tax. The sun may well have been shining but our determined TPA activists braved severe cold to collect signatures from passers-by down next the indoor and outdoor markets by the Bullring... Read more...
Yesterday in a speech to Demos, David Cameron said that the recession has “hammered the final nail in the coffin” of big government. He went on to claim that Gordon Brown had allowed the financial crisis to develop by accumulating exorbitant amounts of public debt. He called for more restraint... Read more...
In response to today's TaxPayers' Alliance report on the rocketing numbers of council staff earning more than £50,000 a year, London Councils - an apparently taxpayer funded PR group for London's councils - has attacked our numbers: "This is a surprising move from the Taxpayers' Alliance at a time when... Read more...
The average local authority employed almost 22 per cent more middle managers in 2007-08 than 2006-07. The number of staff on £50,000-plus remuneration packages has risen from 31,000 to almost 37,000 in one year. The total bill for those council staff on £50,000-plus was nearly £2.4 billion last year –... Read more...
This week’s non-job of the week comes from Liverpool City Council, you know, the one with the gaping hole in its finances and yet still spent your money on a model of a giant spider: “Assistant to the Leader of the Labour Group£24,331 - £25,940 To join a... Read more...
The good news came through at Prime Minister's Questions today that the Government is going to drop its last-ditch attempt to keep MPs' expenses secret! This is great news for taxpayers - we will be allowed to see how our elected representatives spend our money. Thank you to everyone who... Read more...
Councils deserve our gratitude today. The Government wanted a number of councils to run pilots for bin taxes but the Telegraph reports that not a single council made a bid and the scheme has been abandoned for now. Such a tax would be another burden on council taxpayers already... Read more...
Despite all the flak they took over secret MPs' expenses, the ruling of the Information Commission that went against them, the High Court ruling that crushed their weak arguments and the fact that the Commons authorities have spent months and hundreds of thousands of pounds preparing expenses details for publication,... Read more...
Deputy Assistant Commissioner Alf Hitchcock, the man in charge of Operation Blunt - the Metropolitan Police's effort to tackle knife crime - and one of the country's top police man is to retire from the MET in April. After 30 years as an officer he leaves the force to take... Read more...
We pay our taxes in good faith for many important services, including our police force, national defence, schools, healthcare etc., though we’re all very aware that worryingly large amounts are regularly siphoned off for rather more dubious causes, like MP and MEP’s expenses, bloated quangos and government non-jobs to name... Read more...
Of course we'll insure your toxic onions -why not? Watching the Brown/Darling news conference on their latest massive bank bailout, it was interesting to see how Brown reacted to the Blank Cheque charge. He growled menacingly at ITN's Tom Bradby that he should be "very cautious" about suggesting such things.Why?If... Read more...
Day after day we awake to yet another government “initiative” to help one interest group or another through the “credit crisis” (of its own making), or to promote another idea for a crazy social engineering agenda, or just more nannying. The list of heists from taxpayers for “chosen ones”... Read more...
This time last year Coventry City Council were advertising for a ‘Crime Reduction Co-ordinator’ on a pretty hefty salary – this year it appears we have a different story with their ‘Neighbourhood Wardens’ facing the chop in order to recoup £173,000. But this decision hasn’t gone uncriticised, not least by... Read more...
Sir Digby Jones was in the Government for a year, as part of Gordon Brown's attempt to create a "government of all the talents". He came away with quite a strong impression that the Civil Service isn't up to scratch: "Ex-trade minister Lord Digby Jones says he was "amazed"... Read more...
The competition for most poorly timed campaign of 2009 is already heating up, despite us only being two weeks in. Reuters is reporting that Willem Buiter, former Bank of England bigwig, has today launched a new campaign to persuade Britain to join the euro. The fundamental plank of Buiter's campaign... Read more...
It was reported yesterday that a woman who was robbed and beaten by a gang of thugs had her case thrown out of court because she was "honest, utterly decent and brave." Further, The Sun reports that a man who has committed assault with a baseball bat has been let... Read more...
There's one of those classic news stories today that raises your eyebrows and then explains itself all in one sentence. The kind that starts off "that's politically interesting" and ends up feeling slightly more predictable than "dog bites postman". This time, it's all to do with Eric Pickles' laudable proposals... Read more...