Blogging over on Centre Right, my colleague Matthew Sinclair discusses the emasculation of the House of Commons, as shown in the current furarce (somewhere between a furore and a farce) over the Speaker. There is a serious issue here for MPs that some of them still don’t seem to appreciate.

A lot of MPs feel they are hard done by in public opinion at the moment – that they only claim reasonable expenses whilst working extremely long hours, but the view down the pub is wrongly that they are lazy and on the make. The vast majority of MPs are probably right to feel at least a touch of frustration about this, but the only way to solve it is to win back the public’s trust with more openness.

As they say, a good reputation takes years to build and a second to lose.

The best way for MPs to win back trust and their reputation is for them to become vocal campaigners for reform. That means publishing their own information, as I’ve discussed here before, but also speaking up against the Speaker and the way he is damaging Parliament.

Spending large amounts of public money to try to keep information about where our money is spent secret is a disgrace and is hugely damaging to public faith in Parliament. Worse, the Speaker and the Commons Commission claim to speak for all MPs in doing their best to keep Westminster free of public scrutiny. No wonder MPs feel harshly judged – the Speaker is claiming to have their mandate for his unethical, antidemocratic and arrogant campaign.

If he does not have their backing, they should say so. The excellent MP for Harwich and Clacton Douglas Carswell said so yesterday – more should now follow. I reccomend you read Carswell’s article in full, by the way, as it accurately diagnoses a large portion of the deeper malaise that afflicts our system of Government.

There are no valid arguments against other MPs speaking up. Let’s run through those that are put forward:

It is simply not done.

Rubbish. If it is right to do, it is right to do – MPs are meant to pursue the best for their constituents and the nation, not kowtow to imaginary convention.

The Speaker will never call me to speak or ask a question ever again.

Do MPs really believe Michael Martin to be so vindictive and short-sighted that he would abuse the procedures of the Commons to satisfy a grudge? If this is true, then it is simply more evidence that he should not continue. I suspect that even if he wanted to, the Speaker would be well aware that a quick visit to www.theyworkforyou.com would be sufficient to show that the regularity of a Member being called was tailing off after their comments about him.

The Speaker is an independent and authoritative figure who should be respected.

With great power comes great responsibility. Michael Martin should only be afforded the respect due to a Speaker who is providing good service to the Commons as long as he is actually doing a good job. Suffering in silence while he degrades the public’s view of national politics will benefit no-one.

Now that Douglas Carswell has opened the door, others will surely follow – being the first and only one is the most difficult position, but now he has stuck his neck out it is safer for others to join him. 

TPA supporter Tony Barnes has brought to our attention yet another example of Sutton Council wasting taxpayers’ money.  Last time they were guilty of increasing executive officer salaries with an extra £11k a year, taking their pay to well over £100,000 a year.  Bear in mind frontline workers are pegged at a 2% increase, not the 10% awarded by the Council to senior officers.

This time, however, Sutton Council is using £92,000 of your money to “furnish councillors’ homes with a high-tech arsenal of BlackBerries, laptops and broadband internet connections”. 

Snouts in the trough or what!  The political class line their homes with the newest gadgets and technology with your taxes that you expect to go to frontline services.

Sutton Councillors get a basic ‘salary’ of £9,582.  Surely this can be put to their own gifts and gadgets?  Sutton Council already spends over £1 million pounds on its own publicity, so why is this taxpayer broadband subsidy necessary? 

The fact is it’s indefensible.  On top of a salary meant to cover expenses, including communication, Sutton’s ruling councillors have raided taxpayer coffers to make their personal lives that bit more comfortable as the rest of us struggle to cope in uncertain economic times. 

Their recent catastrophic moves to give senior officers £11,000 more, to levy a £35 cost to collect garden waste and to implement an above inflation Council Tax increase proves only one thing:  Sutton’s ruling councillors are not putting taxpayer value for money first!

If you wish to make your thoughts clear to Sutton’s councillors, you can find their contact details on our previous blog here.  Alternatively, if you want to mobilise Sutton’s taxpayers to bring this issue up with their councillors, please send a letter to the Sutton Guardian, by emailing a letter to [email protected] 

How long are you going to allow the politicians to keep on wasting your money?   

This week I saw two sides of the grassroots campaign.  The first was in Hatfield last weekend where our Hertfordshire campaigners got a stall together at the monthly Farmers Market. 

We handed out bumper stickers, leaflets and our playing cards to recruit people to the campaign, which we did in spades.  Thanks to Richard Griffiths for organising the enjoyable day – if you ever get the chance to try an ostrich burger, see that you do – and to Martin Thornhill, Steve Peers and his family and Victoria Parker for turning up.  This is our grassroots campaign, placards, leaflets and ideas.  That’s all you need.  If you want a leaflet day like this in your area, I can get the message out and supply you with all you need to make it a successful recruitment day.  Simply email me and we can start the work!

The other side of the campaign was concealed by a mountain of envelopes, a fraction of which you can see above.  As a diverse campaign, we like to reach all of our supporters, whether online or not.  Sometimes this takes a lot of effort – such as stuffing thousands of envelopes – but when I get a call from someone who wants to thank us for making the effort to contact them, it’s heart-warming.  Besides, it’s the least we can do.  You are out there, in snow, wind and rain, putting the low tax message across.  You’re challenging those clinging to their taxpayer-funded vested interests and arguing for transparency and smaller government.

I was helped this week by some wonderful staff, campaigners and supporters.  Many thanks to Neil Lock, Richard Jackson, Victoria Parker, Ray Adams, Johanna Kaschke, Matt Sinclair, Fiona McEvoy and Alison Grainger. 

We’ve always known that, for some people at least, high taxes are motivated by a degree of envy. The unpleasant motive of wanting to bring down the successful rears its ugly head regularly, all too often translated by the law of unintended consequences into something that harms the poor. One Argentinian campaigner has apparently taken it extremely literally, though.

Yes, Gonzalo Otalora wants to tax attractive people, with the proceeds going into the pockets of the ugly. Aside from the innumerable practical problems (and the questionable social benefit of incentivising people to be really, really minging) it is notable that Mr Otalora seems to have developed the only tax that people may insist they ought to be paying more of. "Dear HMRC, You seem to have overlooked how hot I am. Please recalculate my bill upwards…"

In May I will have been at the TPA for a year.  In that year, I have not seen anything as disgraceful as in today’s Daily Mail.  Poole Council used legislation, written and sold to us on the idea it would help track terrorists, to spy on a family they suspected of living outside a school catchment area. 

The Regulation of Investigative Powers Act 2000 was introduced on the grounds that it would boost national security.  Poole Council, being a creative sort, went well over their remit by using the powers to snoop on families.  They monitored this unnamed family for three weeks, with intentions to stop them sending their children to a good school if they lived outside the catchment area. 

In an almost comical scene, the Mail describes how council officers wrote reports as if they were in a cheap Spooks rip-off.  On your buck, council hatchetmen kept detailed notes, going as far as to record when the lights were on in the family home.  To add insult to injury, we don’t even know how long Poole Council will keep the family’s information and what they will use it for. 

This time it was Poole Council spying on people to see they send their children to the ‘right’ school.  What will they use it on next?  But clearly this is a worrying trend.  East Hampshire Council announced this week they will be phoning people who leave ‘too much’ rubbish outside to ask them why, what are they throwing away, etc.  Basildon Council sent bureaucrats up and down streets to go through people’s rubbish to see if any recyclable goods were being thrown away.  Inch by inch these Town Hall bureaucrats are invading our private lives – and we’re paying for it year after year in ever-increasing Council Tax. 

Someone has to carry the can for this gross invasion of privacy.  Please contact Poole’s Councillors to ask them to investigate this obscene breach of privacy.  Here are the contact details:

Cllr Peter Adams – [email protected]
Cllr Jeff Allen – [email protected]
Cllr Elaine Atkinson – [email protected]
Cllr Michael Brooke – [email protected]
Cllr David Brown – [email protected]
Cllr Chris Bulteel – [email protected]
Cllr Les Buden – [email protected]
Cllr Judy Butt – [email protected]
Cllr Graham Chandler – [email protected]
Cllr Brian Clements – [email protected]
Cllr Donald Collier – [email protected]
Cllr Graham Curtis – [email protected]
Cllr Carole Deas – [email protected]
Cllr Xena Dion – [email protected]
Cllr Philip Eades – [email protected]
Cllr Carol Evans – [email protected]
Cllr David Gillard – [email protected]
Cllr Roger Gregory – [email protected]
Cllr May Haines – [email protected]
Cllr Joyce Lavender – [email protected]
Cllr Brian Leverett – [email protected]
Cllr Daphne Long – [email protected]
Cllr Peter Maiden – [email protected]
Cllr Daniel Martin – [email protected]
Cllr Graham Mason – [email protected]
Cllr Christopher Matthews – [email protected]
Cllr Charles Meachin – [email protected]
Cllr Guy Montrose – [email protected]
Cllr Sandra Moore – [email protected]
Cllr Ron Parker – [email protected]
Cllr Michael Plummer – [email protected]
Cllr John Rampton – [email protected]
Cllr Neil Sorton – [email protected]
Cllr Ann Stribley – [email protected]
Cllr Tony Trent – [email protected]
Cllr Janet Walton – [email protected]
Cllr Mike White – [email protected]
Cllr Michael Wilkins – [email protected]
Cllr Graham Wilson – [email protected]
Cllr Lindsay Wilson – [email protected]
Cllr Tony Woodcock – [email protected]

Do please contact these councillors and ask them who is responsible for issuing the orders that sent council bureaucrats to spy on people.  Ask them how many times since 2000 the RIPA has been used to spy on people.  It’s also worthwhile that you ask your council whether they have been spying on you like Poole Council has. 

Finally, as a philosophical note, this debacle reminded me of this famous quote from Proudhon:

“"To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality."
- P. J. Proudhon, General Idea of Revolution in the Nineteenth Century

I’m starting to think he had a point…

I suppose I ought to declare an interest in this story – I not only love lower, simpler taxes, I love chocolate teacakes. Even if I didn’t, though, this would stand out as a ridiculous example of the problems a complex tax system brings.

The very fact that there has been a costly wrangle going on for years about the relative tax status of the chocolate teacake as regards to being a biscuit or a "traditional bakery product" should be a compelling sign that we have an overly complex tax system. The "brief" summary on the BBC web site takes over 160 words and a 2 by 3 tabulated explanation. Unfortunately, it’s not just a laughable tale about a tasty product, it’s been a very costly saga for all involved – consumers, Marks and Spencer’s and the taxpayer.

One interesting thing to note is that the headline is "Teacake set to cost taxman £3.5m". This is utterly wrong – this judgement won’t cost the taxman a penny. He will continue to receive his wages and unjustified performance bonuses regardless. The only people who have lost out in this are you and I – people who were wrongly charged tax when they bought teacakes and who have footed the bill for HMRC’s lengthy legal defence which they bizarrely continued on dubious grounds against M&S even after they had repaid supermarkets.

If we had a simple tax code – and tax officials who didn’t view taxpayers’ money as rightfully theirs to cling onto and splash about on lawyers on their every whim – none of this would have needed to happen, taxpayers wouldn’t have had to foot a massive legal bill and, most importantly, we could all have enjoyed cheaper chocolate teacakes.

From Friction TV:

(if the video does not display try clicking the link to go and watch it on Friction TV’s website)

The Noble Lord Snape, former railwayman and MP, has rushed to the defence of speaker Michael Martin, calling the inquiry into his wife’s £4,000 taxi bill a “load of fuss and nonsense about nothing”. 

He states his position clearly in an interview with the BBC, which you can see here.  He says at 1.10 in the piece:

“Is the Speaker’s wife supposed to queue up for the number 12 bus outside when she does her shopping?”

Yes, Lord Snape, she is, or if she wants to get a taxi she can pay for it herself out of the £138,724 her husband earns a year.

This rebuke of the buses and public transport is interesting, and somewhat surprising, because Lord Snape likes to remind everyone about his background in the public transport sector.  In the Register of Lord’s Interests, Lord Snape declares a role as a non-parliamentary consultant to First Group plc (bus and train operators in the UK and USA) and in Hansard he has spoken of his pride in “working for the National Express Group—indeed, I was chairman of its major bus operator for some years”.

In the same debate, Lord Snape went on to argue that more people should ride the bus, saying that more should be done to “tempt motorists out of their cars”.

So apparently Lord Snape wants you and me to take the bus, but not the Speaker’s wife.  The buses he takes pride in clearly can’t be good enough for the Speaker’s wife. 

You should tell Lord Snape that, firstly, £4,000 is a lot of money; it’s a pension for some elderly folk trying to get by.  You should tell Lord Snape that Mrs Martin should get on the bus, like the rest of us.  You can drop him an email expressing just how important this investigation is.  Email [email protected] and let him know what you think.

Further to our complaint to the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner back in February, it has today been confirmed that Michael Martin is to be investigated over expenses claimed by his wife for taxi trips to the supermarket. You can read the full letter from the Commissioner here:

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We welcome the enquiry, as it shows the Commons authorities are taking the issue of MPs’ expenses seriously. Some people have been guilty in the past of dismissing the public’s concern over this issue as being either passing, inevitable or media-stoked. It is none of these, rather it is a genuine and serious worry for people firstly that their money may be being wasted or abused at all but especially that such things might be going on in Parliament, the hub of the British State. If anyone has abused taxpayers’ generosity, they deserve to be exposed and punished. People work very hard to make ends meet, and tax adds a severe burden to the lives of many people. This means those on the taxpayers’ payroll are duty bound to take care of every single penny.

The question of openness and accountability is central to this and other recent controversies over expenses and their possible abuse. None of this  – the Derek Conway scandal, the John Lewis list revelation or the new enquiry into the Speaker – would have come about had we had a culture of transparency in place. We believe that all MPs expenses, down to the receipts for tea and biscuits, should be published on the internet for all to see. After all, it is our Parliament, they are our MPs and it is our money, so we as taxpayers should have the right to know how it is all spent.

The fact that the Speaker has overseen the spending of tens of thousands of pounds on legal fees so far to try to keep MPs’ expenses secret, that he has just launched a High Court appeal in a last ditch attempt to keep us all in the dark and most importantly that he is chairing the enquiry into MPs’ expenses, makes the Standards’ Commissioner’s enquiry particularly important.

Mr Martin quite clearly should not be the person in charge of reviewing MPs’ expenses at a time when he is doing everything within his power – all paid for by you and me – to keep those expenses secret. He certainly should not be charged with a review that is meant to be about restoring a the Commons’ reputation for probity at a time when he is himself under investigation.

I don’t know whether Mr or Mrs Martin have broken the rules or not – that is something for the Commissioner to investigate and decide. In the meantime, the Speaker must remove himself from any involvement in the MPs’ expenses system immediately if that process is to retain any credibility at all. If, ultimately, guilt were to be established in this or any other similar case, we at the TaxPayers’ Alliance hope that any punishment would be strong and swift. We were very outspoken earlier this year in calling for proper punishment when Derek Conway was found guilty of abusing staffing allowances, and he was swiftly punished by Parliament and disowned by his Party. We trust that any other MP abusing the allowances system would be punished at least as severely.

In the longer term, people need more than simply individual enquiries when allegations happen to surface. Taxpayers have fundamentally lost faith in Westminster and recent opinion polls show that while MPs’ expenses remain secret, the populace will continue to assume many or even most are corrupt. That probably isn’t the case, but if Parliamentarians want to clear their collective name, dispel any suspicions and prove that our money is being well spent, the only way to do it is to throw open the shutters and publish all of their expenses for all of us to see.

14 TPA Activists gathered on Monday morning to protest with Steve Peers, who was taken to court over £65 non-payment of Council Tax.  This isn’t the first time he’s withheld council tax either.  He was sent to prison back in January, on his 40th birthday no less, for non-payment of £40.  You can read coverage of our protest here in the local St Albans media.

We were joined by TPA supporters from as far away as Norfolk, even, as Steve’s case was heard.  It’s a sad reflection of the Council Tax regime that Steve wasn’t the only one in court for non-payment of Council Tax.  Dozens filled the list to be called in and, like Steve, given a liability order – meaning the Bailiffs are coming.

Nonetheless, Steve continues to campaign on this as a matter of principle.  You can see from our many reports that our money is being wasted.  Below is a message from Steve.  Heed his words; it’s all well and good complaining, but it’s the doing that gets results.

So stand with us.  Join us by registering here.  Recommend us to your friends, neighbours and colleagues.  Email me to get some leaflets so you can recruit in your area.  We know you’re over taxed, but the question is – what are you going to do about it?