Is nothing in this country sacred, nothing too out of reach of the taxman? Today in the Telegraph it appears the taxman is trying to get his beak into pigeon racing. Yes, pigeon racing. As pigeon racing isn’t recognised as a sport and therefore doesn’t qualify for tax relief, pigeon... Read more...
Champagne bureaucrats In the lavish expenses news this week:Met chief spends £15 grand on drinkies- "Andy Hayman, the Metropolitan police anti-terrorism chief, has been questioned over thousands of pounds spent on hotel expenses and drinks for his staff. He has been asked to explain at least £15,000 expenses that included... Read more...
The race is on for the position of chief executive at the Regional Development quango Advantage West Midlands, and although the lucky winner will be paid with your money and have hundreds of millions of your tax pounds to spend, you will have absolutely no say on who gets the... Read more...
Those HMRC staff cuts Yes, the PM can blame the junior official who downloaded the data and sent the discs through the ordinary mail. But come on. How on earth was it possible for him to do it? What's to stop a criminal gang member getting a job round at... Read more...
Once upon a time Chancellors took responsibility Just imagine that Lloyds TSB, say, had loaded all its customer records onto an unencrypted CD and then lost it. What do you think would happen?First off, there'd be a huge public outcry, led by the media but with our name and... Read more...
It appears that hiring illegal immigrants and presiding over general misconduct within the workplace are just the tip of the iceberg for Birmingham City Council, as the Birmingham Post reports the details of just some of the millions of pounds worth of discrepancies presented to the financial audit committee yesterday. ... Read more...
According to a report in yesterday’s Birmingham Mail no less than 50 illegal workers were caught in a swoop at Birmingham City Council. This investigation was called for after earlier this year one Ugandan employee, an illegal immigrant, managed to steal in excess of £1million from the council’s social... Read more...
HMRC have announced that any of the 25 million people whose personal and banking information has been lost or stolen can now phone 0845 302 1444 for information and advice about the "organisational failure" and how to protect themselves against any resulting risk of fraud or identity theft.Given the gravity... Read more...
The Inland Revenue fiasco will go down in the history books as one of the most unbelievable acts of incompetence by a British government. It does, though, give us a prime example to use in our campaigns on the merits of low taxes and smaller, better government. Firstly, small... Read more...
Melting ice caps? Drought? Global Warming? Fear not because Southwark Council are coming to the rescue. Feel free to roll your eyes at yet another local government non-job using taxpayers’ money to appease a guilty conscience. Southwark Council this week have four jobs aimed at ‘tackling’ climate change. I... Read more...
Just watch the vid. Five months may be a lifetime in politics, but you can't mistake the enthusiasm of Treasury civil servants for Gordon Brown as he leaves them for No 10.Your correspondent was at the Treasury during the years of Healey and Howe. There is no way such... Read more...
The Conservatives have today set out plans for a supply side "revolution" in education. Below are the proposals: "Provide over 220,000 new school places. That would meet the demand from every parent who lost their appeal for their first choice school in our most deprived boroughs. "Allow educational charities, philanthropists,... Read more...
It is hard to really get your head around just how complete the failure at the HMRC today is in losing the unencrypted records of 25 million recipients of child benefit. These records include names, addresses, national insurance data and even bank account details. There are a few things to... Read more...
TPA activist Barbara Lockwood, who also organises a local campaign against council tax (known as FACT), has informed us that Norfolk’s county councillors are increasing their pay by a whopping 28%, roughly an extra £2,000 – of your money in their pockets - a year. Just for comparison, the... Read more...
Worth £300 grand of anyone's money We've blogged the state equality industry several times. In particular, we looked at the amalgamation of the Commission for Racial Equality, the Disability Rights Commission, and the Equal Opportunities Commission, to form Labour's new super equality quango- the Commission for Equality and Human Rights... Read more...
Junk bonds at least give you a nice certificate to hang on the wall So following Darling's statement on Northern Rock this afternoon, are we any the wiser?Not really- "it would be quite wrong to dismiss any option now without proper consideration as some suggest," doesn't really tell us anything.More... Read more...
Liam Byrne, Minister for the West Midlands, has revealed plans for a major new Birmingham acting school according to a report in the Birmingham Post today. Negotiations are underway regarding the ‘Brit School’, a school with an ‘arts led curriculum’ for 950 students aged 14 to 19, and designed... Read more...
BBC correspondent doubts We currently spend some £26bn pa on incapacity, disability and injury benefits. We have 2.7m people of working age drawing IB.Everybody agrees* that many recipients are claiming for pretty dubious reasons (eg see this blog), and this morning we get some more detail: "Almost two thousand people... Read more...
£25 grand brekkie In the news this week:Fry up costs us £25,000- "When Denis Breading went for a fried breakfast at his work canteen it was meant to be a short break before getting on with his job. Instead he has been suspended for the past six weeks during an... Read more...
The draft 2008 Budget passed the Italian Senate yesterday. The Budget sets out plans to lower housing taxes, while at the same time the main rate of corporation tax will fall from 33 per cent to 27.5 per cent. The main rate of corporation tax does not include regional... Read more...
As offers to buy Northern Rock come in, a key question for taxpayers is how to minimise our losses from the debacle. This is a lengthy blog, but in summary we conclude: Total taxpayer exposure is already £35-40bn (loans plus deposit guarantees) Underlying security is questionable NR shareholders are seeking... Read more...
No sooner have we praised Coventry City Council leader Ken Taylor for pushing to keep the rise in councillors’ allowances below inflation, than a Freedom of Information response reveals that the council have spent over £50,000 in travel over the last year. The amount, revealed by the West Midlands... Read more...
Yesterday the Telegraph reported that police complaints are at record highs. That isn't much of a surprise and the police themselves saw it coming. In May the Police Federation warned that targets and other symptoms of political management were turning people off the police force: "A spokesman for the federation... Read more...
This week, in the wake of the Public Sector Rich List and our growing grassroots campaigns, two new organisers have stepped forward looking to set up TaxPayers’ Alliance branches. The first is Shipley MP Philip Davies. He contacted me a week ago volunteering to become an organiser to help... Read more...