The West Midlands TaxPayers' Alliance has announced a new petition - "NO MORE MONEY FOR THE PUBLIC ARTS CENTRE IN WEST BROMWICH". You can read about The Public here and here. The text of the petition reads: “We, the named taxpayers listed below, petition Sandwell Council, Advantage West Midlands... Read more...
The West Midlands campaign launched this morning outside 'The Public' gallery in West Brom. As one of the most scandalous examples of profligate spending and poor planning in the region - if not the country - this £54million white elephant was the perfect backdrop for our new campaign. Leafleting in... Read more...
New designs for the staff room Raise the school leaving age to 18? Teachers think it's a shocking idea. Geraldine Everett, chairman of the Professional Association of Teachers, says:“Here is a Government that has toyed with the idea of lowering the voting age to 16 in order to promote... Read more...
Geraldine Everett, chairman of the Professional Association of Teachers, told the PAT annual conference in Harrogate: “Here is a Government that has toyed with the idea of lowering the voting age to 16 in order to promote a greater sense of citizenship among our young people. Yet it proposes to... Read more...
The Telegraph has reported that despite claims that water bills would have to rise to pay for additional flood defences, directors of the Environment Agency received bonuses of an average 10%, with the agencies chairman Baroness Young receiving a generous £24,000 (15%) bonus to add to her already over generous... Read more...
NEW INDEPENDENT, NON-PARTY CAMPAIGN AGAINST RECKLESS SPENDING AND WASTE IN THE REGION BACKED BY A THOUSAND SUPPORTERS IN THE REGION AND A COUNCIL OF LEADING LOCAL FIGURES CAMPAIGN TO LAUNCH OUTSIDE THE PUBLIC ARTS CENTRE WITH NEW PETITION TO OPPOSE ANY EXTRA MONEY FOR THE FAILING PROJECT The TaxPayers’ Alliance... Read more...
This document sets out the dismal record of politicians wasting taxpayers' money in the West Midlands. Download West Midlands Waste Dossier (PDF) Read more...
Our supporters include those who run businesses operating in many industry sectors across the region as well as civil society. All of them support the TaxPayers’ Alliance in a personal capacity. Paul Biggs, Regional Director, Association of British Drivers (ABD)Alan Blumenthal, Managing Director, Suits PlusKeith Bradshaw, Chairman, Listers of CoventryEdward... Read more...
The Taxpayers’ Alliance exists first and foremost to defend the interests and rights of ordinary hardworking taxpayers. It is ordinary taxpayers who have to foot the mounting bill for a monolithic government bureaucracy wasting money on pointless, feel good projects. Taxpayers have seen more of their own money swallowed up... Read more...
This A5 flyer sets out, in a compact form, the objectives of, and reasons for, the West Midlands TaxPayers' Alliance. It is concise introduction to the new campaign and is just the right size and length to be given out to Saturday shoppers to read on the bus home. We... Read more...
The Telegraph reports that the 'Agenda for Change' reform of NHS pay has failed to deliver improved productivity, according to the King's Fund health research organisation. The cost of the change was under-estimated by £200 million and may have made up nearly half of last year's NHS deficits. This is... Read more...
News that some of Britain's paralympians are repaying all that tax-funded support they get by defrauding us out of even more:"A BRITISH Paralympics squad has allegedly become embroiled in an multi-million-pound scam involving the tax-free sale of top of the range luxury cars. Several members of the team are alleged... Read more...
Car of choice for Hollywood movie stars and British civil servantsNew research by the TaxPayers' Alliance reveals that £888,000 of taxpayers' money could have been saved if the Government Car & Despatch Service (GCDS) had bought normal cars, which cost around £8000 less each, instead of Toyota Prius and Honda... Read more...
In the news this week:EU water directives blow £65bn- "Water bills have already been soaring in recent years. But by far the greater part of that money has been spent, not on repairing pipes and drains, to avoid floods and provide us with extra water, but on complying with three... Read more...
The Financial Times reports today (here and here) that up to £30bn of PFI debt may shortly be reclassified back to where it belongs- on the government's balance sheet. As BOM readers will know, up until now Mr Brown's Enron style fiscal accounting has massaged most of it away (see... Read more...
The Times reported yesterday that the National Patient Safety Agency has found that thousands are dying every year thanks to poor communication between hospital staff, faulty equipment and a lack of skills. Politicians managing from Whitehall without proper management experience and subject knowledge cannot understand what is really going on... Read more...
An interesting article by Nicholas Timmins in the Financial Times today looks at whether public service reform will stall under Gordon Brown: "The odd straw in the wind has been spotted, captured and analysed to death for any sign of a repudiation of the previous administration's approach.Does Alan Johnson's declaration... Read more...
The memory- and the cost- linger on... You may have thought that the £19bn ID cards project (see BOM's cost primer here) was safely asleep in the long stinging nettles, but it isn't. It's alive and well and already costing us plenty.Computing reports:"The government has spent £53m on consultants for... Read more...
Teaching to the test: getting better all the time Before you read this blog, you need to click here and watch the video.ResultsPlus. Glossy? Certainly. Slick? Yup. Blood boiling? Arrrrgggghhhh.We're all surely aware by now that the government's regime of school management via tests and tables has some serious shortcomings.In... Read more...
Does anyone have a clue where we're heading? Halfway across a severely swollen river is not a good time to let the tiller go. But that of course is precisely what Cap'n Alan Johnson is doing on the good ship NHS. Whereas Commissar Hewitt had it hard about, Cap'n Al... Read more...
Quite apart from taxes, government imposes a further huge burden on us in the form of regulation.One part of this- although only one part- is red tape. Successive governments routinely promise to slash it, but somehow the slashing never seems to inflict much more than a mild scratch. Even worse,... Read more...
This week we turn our gaze away from Tower Shamlets and the other one party states of East London and cast our watchful eye on the South West for our non-job of the week. Gloucestershire County Council has applied for a spin doctor for their waste department. Yes, rubbish needs... Read more...
For far too long the language and rhetoric of international trade agreements has been depressingly mercantilist. If one country agrees to reduce its protectionist measures it is talked of as a "concession" and a "sell-out", whilst politicians and diplomats who dogmatically cling onto their ridiculous trade policies are saluted and commended for defending their... Read more...
Last year, Gordon Brown committed the Government to reduce the total cost to businesses and charities of regulation from £20 billion a year to £16 billion a year by 2010. In response, Whitehall departments have drawn up plans to abolish unnecessary regulations and reform others. But a National Audit Office... Read more...