In a speech to the Hansard society on Wednesday, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Hazel Blears MP, took the opportunity to attack political blogging. She claimed that bloggers are fueling political cynicism, encouraging a general disengagement from the political system. Understandably, at... Read more...
Last Friday the TPA was out in St Albans collecting signatures for a petition to lower council tax. Thankfully some good weather made it a great day for all, with people queuing at times to sign our petition. We had... Read more...
Tis almost the season to be jolly…but only if you’re a senior council officer at East Riding council up in Yorkshire. East Riding council wants to pay its senior officers up to £12,000 more per year, taking the money out of the taxpayer’s pockets and putting it in the bureaucrats’... Read more...
Nanny needs help in Bristol. Whet your appetite at our non-job of the week: “Food Policy Officer£30,598 - £33,291 Passionate about the future of food? This is an exciting opportunity to shape food policy in Bristol, working on behalf of Bristol City Council and Bristol Primary Care Trust.... Read more...
On Friday I went up to the University of East Anglia to take part in a Question Time event hosted by the University of East Anglia Conservatives which was an open event to all students. With a packed room – even on Halloween – the audience fired very challenging questions... Read more...
The German Government are apparently threatening to veto an EU Commission proposal to extend member states' rights to reduce VAT on a variety of services (yes, you really do need unanimous EU permission to cut taxes on haircuts). The fact that we have sacrificed our right to set our... Read more...
It was reported last week that North Somerset Council invested £3 million two months after it had been warned that Landsbanki was not on sound financial footing. Yes, afterwards. You may think this is inexcusable, but NSC would like you to think again. Finance Director Phil Hall keeps saying... Read more...
On Friday I joined Peter Roberts of the Drivers’ Alliance and Sean Corker of MART (Manchester Against Road Tolls) to campaign against the Manchester congestion charge in the run-up to the 11th December referendum. Read more...
The British Government has announced new plans to ensure hate preachers will be kept out of Britain. From now on it will be for the radicals to prove they are not a threat to Britain. Currently, the Government has to prove they are a threat. This announcement is a little... Read more...
Pension funds have lost between £150 billion and £225 billion as a result of the pension tax grab in the 1990s. Over 17,000 public sector pensioners now enjoy pension benefits worth a million pounds or more. The value of the Basic State Pension is down 20% since 1950.... Read more...
Earlier in the week we published The Case Against an 80 per cent Mandatory Target for Emissions Cuts. Our analysis found that it will likely mean a huge sacrifice in GDP, and that on current trends by 2050 GDP will be 78% lower than otherwise. Over on Burning Our... Read more...
One new all-time record coming up This week Mr Darling buried the fiscal rules, telling us:"To apply the fiscal rules in a rigid manner today would be perverse. We would have to take money out of the economy, exacerbating an already difficult situation."Of course, he's attacking a straw man -... Read more...
Via Tim Worstall, the Telegraph reports that NICE, the body that decides which drugs the NHS will provide, is insisting that it shouldn't be made to pay costs having lost a legal case to keep the details of how it reaches its decisions secret: "Mr Dillon added: "Nice has... Read more...
67% say we are now paying the price for government overspending in the good years Big majority (59%) see tax cuts as a better response to recession than higher spending 67% think that Gordon Brown should follow the example of Ireland’s President and volunteer to take a 10%... Read more...
The Lib Dem controlled Northampton Borough councillors this week voted to pass themselves a 7.7% pay increase for all councillors. The leader of the council voted himself a 43% pay increase. Yes, you read that right, a forty-three-per-cent pay increase. The deputy leader gets a 64% increase. All cabinet members... Read more...
This morning The Stirrer website has revealed that Steve Gregory, the Executive Director of Urban Regeneration at Sandwell Council, has been given early retirement at 50 as well as a bumper retirement package of £375,000 just weeks after being suspended in suspicious circumstances.Read the whole story on The Stirrer website... Read more...
...so here's a taxpayer point of view on the Russell Brand/Jonathan Ross/Manuel from Fawlty Towers saga. Let's be honest: this is a ridiculous situation. The economy's in crisis, Government borrowing is going through the roof, violent crime is 22% higher than previously admitted and the Congo is exploding again but... Read more...
Last week the head of AQA - one of the UK's biggest exam boards - broke ranks with his rivals to criticise the incessant dumbing down of school qualifications. As the Times and Guardian report, Dr Mike Cresswell's comments follow a public spat between AQA and the new exams... Read more...
An overwhelming majority of people in the North East said an empathic ‘no’ to the North East Regional Assembly back in 2004. Since then, the government haven’t dared to put any other Assemblies up to a public vote, showing how unpopular and unwanted these White Elephants are. These unelected Quangos... Read more...
Those of you who took The Sunday Times this weekend may have noticed that Advantage West Midlands - impervious to the credit crunch - were advertising for yet another highly paid and completely unaccountable executive to join their ranks of 300+, and to help dole out the £350million taxpayer-funded budget... Read more...
The government's line is that entirely out of the blue we've been hit by a tsunami from across the Atlantic. It's an act of God, and the "responsible" thing now is to throw up a mountain of public borrowing in the hope we can clamber above the waterline.But despite the... Read more...
Finally, the financial realities of Gordon Brown's proposed "eco-towns" are coming to light. This weekend, the Department of Communities and Local Government announced that only two of their initial 10 planned eco-towns are still feasible. Environmentally friendly communities and housing projects are both noble ideas in concept; however, eco-towns... Read more...
The Government have recently committed to increase their legally-binding pledge to cut greenhouse gas emissions from 60 per cent to 80 per cent of the 1990 level by 2050. This will be included in the climate change bill, which will get its third reading on October 28th. Setting such a... Read more...
As we've blogged already, having crashed through its own 40% debt ceiling, the government is now grasping at some OECD debt statistics which seem to show them in a more favourable light. Lord Adonis did precisely that on last week's BBC Any Questions, telling us that the OECD figures... Read more...