Two vacancies have emerged on Camden Council’s Standards Committee for independent residents or members of the public who work in Camden. This is an ideal opportunity for TPA activists to hold Camden Councillors to account and see that they abide by the council’s code of conduct. This may... Read more...
Taxpayers celebrate in Edinburgh last night When we published the second Council Spending Uncovered paper on councils' massive publicity spending, Edinburgh City Council came in for quite a bit of criticism when it was revealed they were the biggest spender on spin in Scotland - splashing out £3.4m... Read more...
In an excellent speech yesterday at the IEA's State of the Economy conference Lord Forsyth, chairman of the Tax Reform Commission, used his speech (PDF, via ConservativeHome) to set out just how much could be achieved if spending growth was controlled: the ruinous economic effects of high taxes that we... Read more...
Going up There are three points to make about yesterday's dire truancy statistics (see DCSF stats release here). First, as the chart shows, overall truancy has continued to climb. The percentage of half days missed due to unauthorised absence in primary, secondary and special schools in England... Read more...
Yesterday the Express and Star reported that Wolverhampton City Council will be installing a new assistant chief executive on a bumper £84,000 per-year salary. Another addition, and yet only at the very end of January did the second paper in the TaxPayers’ Alliance Council Spending Uncovered series, ‘Middle Management... Read more...
Dan Mitchell, from the Centre for Freedom and Prosperity at the Cato Institute, provides evidence for the importance of dynamic effects on tax returns. Read more...
Booming independent schools The TES has been talking to some of the thousands of state school teachers who send their own children to independent schools. For obvious reasons, many of them won't talk, but this is John, a primary deputy head in Norfolk: “People say to... Read more...
Click here for the full text of the letter sent by the TaxPayers' Alliance to Mr John Lyon, Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, requesting an investigation into Michael Martin MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, regarding taxi expenses and alleged attempts by someone in his department to mislead the public... Read more...
Be very careful of assuming that if someone's heart is in the right place they'll tend to get things right. They need to know what they're doing. Here's one example, from the Marginal Revolution blog, of what happens when they don't: "Oakland's recent gun buyback was especially ridiculous. The police... Read more...
Being an activist in the TPA means you’re not just joining a political pressure group, you’re a guerrilla in our taxpayers’ army. We want to equip you with all you need to be able to hold your politicians to account as well as securing victories for the taxpayer. With our... Read more...
Pricey bird The other day the excavators moved back into our local patch of Surrey woodland. Well, I say woodland, but actually these days it's more like a scene from the Battle of the Somme. Where once we had trees, we now have vast tracts of open muddy ground,... Read more...
Bournemouth Council, in all its arrogance, voted itself the proposed pay deal we tirelessly campaigned against over the past two weeks. Last Thursday the Council awarded themselves a 17% pay increase, the Cabinet gave themselves an astonishing 32% pay increase and the leader awarded himself a 34% pay increase. In... Read more...
8,500 retired NHS staff have retirement benefits worth £1 million Total bill of £8.5 billion The bill for public sector pensions is of growing concern for taxpayers facing huge bills for underfunded and over-generous pensions. In December 2007, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) revealed that there are almost 3,700... Read more...
When economists want to know what people think they try to avoid relying upon asking them. Surveys, opinion polls, personal anecdote and other ways in which people express their opinion can often be misleading or distorted. When and how a question is asked and how it is phrased can seriously... Read more...
There is a cheaper way to those bits of paper* One of this government's best known New Jerusalem targets is that 50% of our young people should be educated to degree level. But why? How did our "evidence based" rulers reach that conclusion? Especially with higher... Read more...
A recent report from the Reform think thank suggests that UK households spend an average of £1,200 a year on private health care. This amounted to nearly £30 billion in 2007. While much of this spending reflects the needs of families caring for disabled or elderly relatives, undermining the... Read more...
SEE UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE Tonight at 7PM Bournemouth Council vote on their allowances, which we have been campaigning and lobbying against for the past week. Thanks go to Jonathan Sheppard, Peter Roberts, Christopher Way, Linda Berkeley, Vivienne Reed, Ed Hallam, Mohammed Hasan, John Sheperd and... Read more...
The Telegraph reports a call by the British Medical Association for NHS independence: "An NHS constitution should be used to free the health service from the day-to-day interference of Government ministers, doctors' representatives have claimed." We absolutely agree. However, if you're going to make the NHS independent there are two... Read more...
All the selected and graded ones went to Granite Are we all up to speed with Northern Rock's offshore financing vehicle Granite? It has featured heavily in the debate this week as it finally dawned on everyone that a big chunk of NR's mortgage assets has already been... Read more...
Vince Cable, in yesterday's debate on the bill to nationalise Northern Rock, framed the essential question that the Government are not openly addressing but that is of paramount importance to the question of where Northern Rock goes from here over the next few years: "May I return to the central... Read more...
If you read between the lines of every non-job description you can see even more of your money going up in smoke. After getting over the initial shock that we – me, you, the taxpayers down the street – are paying for this non-job, you read on to find that... Read more...
Bake before serving The thing about rock cakes is that they need to be properly baked before serving. Mssrs Brown and Darling clearly haven't grasped that. Unsuprisingly, the Crock's rivals are now highly agitated about its unfair competitive advantage as a state bank. Unsurprising when Northern Rock... Read more...
Here at the WMTPA we strive to highlight the various ways that our public servants, often in local government, continue to plough our money in the wrong direction.With the services we pay for flagging, too often our representatives in local and central government get carried away with the sort of... Read more...
A warning from history We've already blogged George Osborne's latest tax speech, and our disappointment that he's still not prepared to offer a bankable pledge on cutting Labour tax'n'spend (see here). As far as we can see, there's no meaningful difference from what Darling set out in October. Read more...