It is great to see the Financial Times take up the case for school choice, as exists in Sweden. Taking schools out of the hands of politicians and giving control back to parents and teachers: "Despite endless cant about “choice”, the UK educational system stifles competition. In most areas of... Read more...
It’s that time of year again: the building up of nerves, the shrinking of fingernails and then finally, today, the A-level results were out. Students across the UK have, yet again, managed to surpass previous records of A-grade achievements with 25.9% of candidates achieving the top mark. The BBC reports... Read more...
Hull could easily stage the Bullitt remake We all know Hull - outright winner of Britain's Crappest Town award, butt of a million cruel jokes, and scratching a jobless joyless life in the grim shadow of Prescott Towers. And yet, as we drove in over Harold Wilson's enormous white elephant... Read more...
Until we get genuine local accountability for police forces, with elected chiefs, instead of the disaster of centralised targets that bizarrely distort police priorities Britain will be policed like this: "The theft of a milk bottle by a juvenile counts the same as a multi-million pound fraud. Certainly we are... Read more...
First we had central government mistaking Newcastle-Under-Lyme for Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, now Birmingham City Council has gone one better and failed to recognise their own city. If you live in Birmingham you will be receiving – or may have already received – a Birmingham City Council leaflet, complete with information on... Read more...
The ‘nosy neighbour’, who watches you behind twitching curtains and asks one question too many during the morning’s exchange of pleasantries, is one of those universally despised characters. Another one is the taxman. Now imagine what morphing these two figures together would create... our local councils? The trend towards... Read more...
Hold on to your hats. Calm yourselves. Breathe regular. Councillor Mark Bradshaw, who sits on the Cabinet at Bristol City Council, proclaims that no one has a right to free parking outside their home. As you have no right to park on your street this will mean Bristol taxpayers... Read more...
Here’s a note I received from a supporter as to their dealings with HMRC recently: “I act as a paying agent for three businessmen people with a total of 5 staff between them. Not earth-shattering numbers.Because the tax/national insurance payments are less than £1500 per month, I take advantage... Read more...
On the trail of the Shopper Shadow Chief Secretary Philip Hammond has been talking to the FT about how the Tories will tackle the Simple Shopper.BOM readers are only too familiar with the Shopper. He's the one who costs taxpayers zillions each year by bungling the government's £160bn annual... Read more...
Something doesn't smell so good As we've been hearing all over, yesterday was the official first anniversary of the KreditKerrunch. The FT celebrated with a special souvenir edition, and the BBC ran edited highlights of themselves announcing fresh disasters for capitalism - they love it.So what's the score?... Read more...
Detailed analysis of regional economic performance shows no improvement - and even a slowing - in regional performance since RDAs were created. Since 1999 these failed quangos cost taxpayers £15 billion, nearly £600 for every household - money that has effectively been thrown away. The money saved by... Read more...
As you may have read today – or heard our Campaign Director Mark Wallace discussing on the radio – each Regional Development Agency has cost British households £600 since 1999. Despite taking more and more from the taxpayer and yielding less and less – local economies grew and employed more... Read more...
The Guardian today carries a story that the Liberal Democrats are to soften their stance on replacing Council Tax with a local income tax. Similar to William Hague’s strategy with regard to the Euro, Vince Cable – the Lib Dem economics spokesman – has suggested that the party will wait... Read more...
The government today unveils new proposals to deal with the cost and burden of regulation. In efforts toestablish better attunement between business and regulators, government departments are to be set cost limits on the regulations they administer, forcing them to think carefully before introducing new regulations. Companies spend an... Read more...
In 2005, the United Kingdom undertook it’s most recent strategic defence review, its attempt to visualise how the global strategic landscape will develop over the next ten to twenty years. Armed with this review, elected officials and civil servants then made plans for our future, placing orders with defence contractors,... Read more...
Another day, another embarrassing report on hospital hygiene. Today’s reveals that hospitals throughoutEngland are struggling to contain vermin outbreaks in wards and clinics. The BBC reported yesterday that “70% of NHS Trusts brought in pest controllers at least 50 times between January 2006 and March 2008”. The figures, brought to... Read more...
There’s one more job on offer this week in our local government job search, breaking the trend of ever decreasing job vacancies within the state sector. So much for the assumption that government was tightening its belt to show some solidarity with the rest of us in these hard economic... Read more...
One of them is an immediate demand for £600m When the government first took over Northern Rock, they and their supporters tried to kid us that it was a short-term "liquidity problem", not a problem with the underlying credit quality of the Crock's mortgage book.You always needed to be Simple... Read more...
There are two examples of Economic Crap on the same page of The Daily Telegraph of 31st July, by Peter Mandelson (no surprise there) and the Leader writer of the day, which is sad for a market-leaning newspaper. Here’s Mandy, EU Commissioner for Trade: "After seven years - and... Read more...
A TPA supporter emailed in a letters page recently (see below) that reveals a quite startling revelation from the Leader of East Herts. District Council. In responding to a constituent’s letter decrying the high taxes and services in East Herts, Councillor Tony Jackson states the following: “Three examples of... Read more...
The original Ministry of Truth - nothing's changed We learned over the weekend that the Home Office has outrageously spent £2m funding commercial TV series bigging themselves up: "Unlike normal documentaries, the programmes are commissioned by ministers with the purpose of showing their policies or activities in a... Read more...
Yesterday's Sunday Telegraph had an interesting piece of investigative journalism that revealed that the Government has spent £2 million funding commerical television "documentaries" to promote their own policies. Seemingly independent programmes on everything from PCSOs to immigration officials are in fact paid for using our money on the basis... Read more...
The Telegraph reports that the NHS is to spend millions on rebranding Primary Care Trusts to NHS X. This is following in the footsteps of the Norfolk Primary Care Trust that became NHS Norfolk. This will be the fourth rebranding of local NHS organisations since 1997. Primary Care Groups were... Read more...
Last year Canadian biker Gerry Tobin was shot dead by fellow bikers on the M40 after attending the annual ‘Bulldog Bash’ in Warwickshire. This year the cost of policing the event will be a staggering £1.4million. Although the police are refusing to give exact details on just how this... Read more...