Our reporter on the trail... before he contracted foot and mouth According to the "usual sources" (ie shameless leaks), the report on the Pirbright foot and mouth outbreak will finger the government's own virus lab, and not their nextdoor neighbour Merial.Investigators have apparently identified five separate breaches... Read more...
Yesterday the Liberal Democrats attacked our study on green taxes. They make two arguments: 1. More recent studies, they cite the example of the Stern Review, show a higher cost of carbon.2. We haven’t properly accounted for externalities other than CO2 emissions from road transport, their examples... Read more...
The Walsall Observer reported today that Walsall Council’s £7million scheme designed to help vulnerable members of the community has been labelled ‘poor’ by Government watchdogs. Condemned for its lack of any leadership or direction the Audit Commission only saw fit to award the ‘Supporting People’ programme a zero rating,... Read more...
Yesterday the Telegraph reported that a new Economist index will reveal Britain lagging behind other countries of similar income in the quality of life it affords its residents. The difference has a lot to do with our underperforming public services. While in the private sector we lead the world... Read more...
The BBC's the one on the left and the RPA's in the middle Updates on two of the running sores causing taxpayers so much discomfort: 1. BBCThe BBC has been panicked into axing its Comic Relief-style special about climate change. A spokesperson says:"The BBC is committed to programmes about... Read more...
The Centre for Social Cohesion reports that libraries are spending public funds to stock books that promote Islamic extremism and glorify terrorism. The libraries in London, Birmingham and Blackburn stocked books by convicted preachers Abu Hamza and Abdullah Al-Faisal. The report's main focus, however, is on public libraries in Tower... Read more...
It’s not just throwing money at a problem, but how much it takes to make it go away. Such is the mentality of the public service Trade Unions who, trying to revive some kind of 80s militancy, are threatening to strike in Town Halls up and down the country and... Read more...
Interactive forum for TPA Supporters in St. Albans TPA organiser Martin Thornhill has set up a yahoo group to help St. Albans TaxPayers’ Alliance activists and supporters coordinate campaigns and get in touch, share ideas and debate the issues. We’re an interactive, grassroots campaign where no idea is too small or... Read more...
Even though we got today’s non-job from a supporter’s research into their local council, we have gone through the Guardian Society jobs pages and, naturally, found some startling adverts for local government jobs. Since I’ve been trawling through the Guardian jobs pages, I’ve seen the odd job over £100,000 (remember... Read more...
This week’s non-job has been fed to us by a supporter, Donald Grant. Epping Forest District Council is advertising for an ‘overpayments officer’. Mr. Grant made an interesting comment in the email he sent us: ‘why don’t they just get it right in the first place?’ It’s one thing that... Read more...
CAMPAIGN UPDATE 4 September 2007 New Research The Case Against Further Green Taxes The TaxPayers’ Alliance has released the first audit of environmental taxation in the UK alongside a new YouGov poll of more than 2,000 adults commissioned into public attitudes towards green taxes. The report applies the conclusions... Read more...
Derby TaxPayers’ Alliance Organiser Dave Black has taken the fight to Derby councillors over their incompetent management of Derby council. In a letter to Derby newspapers he slates the council’s “barefaced effrontery” in claiming “they are improving services, when the most comprehensive cuts for a decade are ruthlessly imposed”. Again... Read more...
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne writes an op-ed in the Times today in which he sets out overall Tory spending plans for the next three years. Below is a fisk of his article setting out the strengths and weaknesses in his arguments. "Tories cutting services? That’s a pack of lies The... Read more...
Birmingham City Council members and staff have been jetting off to foreign climes spanning nearly every continent of the globe (see map), including jaunts to the Caribbean, Venice and Australia amongst others, and all at the expense of the local taxpayer. The response to a Freedom of Information request submitted... Read more...
Our New Romney organiser, Councillor Wendy Nevard, has been a real gem in our campaign to expose local government waste. She bravely stood up to councillors and officers willing to waste £10,000 of taxpayers’ money on goalposts and has kept us busy with news of constant local government waste down... Read more...
The Bruges Group has published a report exposing how the EU takes £1,000 from every British man, woman and child a year. UK Independence Party MEP Gerard Batten, who authors the report, unravels the damaging costs the EU is imposing on British business and taxpayers. This report highlights how over-regulation... Read more...
GOVERNMENT RAISING £10 BILLION MORE FROM GREEN TAXES THAN REQUIRED TO COVER COST OF UK’S CARBON FOOTPRINT EVERY UK HOUSEHOLD ALREADY OVER-PAYING GREEN TAXES TO THE TUNE OF MORE THAN £400 A YEAR NEW POLL SHOWS BIG MAJORITY BELIEVE POLITICIANS ARE USING GREEN TAXES AS A REVENUE RAISING MEASURE FIRST... Read more...
Education, education, education.And as everyone should have understood, that was going to cost money, money, money.Since Labour came to power, spending on Britain's state schools has more than doubled. Last year they spent £44.7bn, up from £22.2bn in 1996-97 (see here and prior PESAs). Even adjusting for general inflation, the... Read more...
The Express today (not online) reports that the Government has been accused of corporate manslaughter over its failure to provide the armed forces with properly armoured vehicles for patrolling in Afghanistan. The number of deaths through negligence in the public sector is truly staggering, our high hospital infection rates alone... Read more...
There are certainly problems in the prison system, a lack of space for a start, which prison officers have good reason to be displeased about. However, the prison officers' illegal wildcat strike, in response to them getting a pay rise near the top of the 'limit' set by Gordon Brown,... Read more...
National test results have revealed that standards of reading, writing and maths among seven-year-olds have fallen to their 2000 level, despite huge state spending on early education schemes, the Mail reports: "Almost half of boys - nearly 140,000 - will start the next phase of primary school next week without... Read more...
No wonder he's laughing As regular BOM readers will know, the Learning and Skills Council is a complete and utter waste of money.It presides over the nationalised "skills industry", an underperforming quagmire of 500 separate organisations and bureaucracies which costs us over £10bn pa (see previous blogs here - including... Read more...
Worcestershire County Council seems a little confused over what constitutes value for money in recent months. The council have reportedly recruited an extra 1200 staff since 2000 and now have more council workers than when they were a joint county with Hereford. What is more they are now looking into... Read more...
Today has been a day of branch building, making calls to activists and sending letters to supporters. If you’re on our list in Guildford, Godalming, St. Albans, Potters Bar and Hatfield, then expect a letter, email or call from me sometime soon attempting to enlist you to the frontline battle... Read more...