Sep 2008 30

Why are they here – at our expense?8

There is always a huge amount going at the party conferences, and this year’s Tory conference in Birmingham (where I’m blogging from) is no different. Certainly for the TPA we’ve had a whirlwind of leafleting, networking and promoting the tax cuts message.

In between the main conference events and the numerous fringe meetings, though, are a range of stands and stalls. We had one on Monday to sign up supporters, distribute information about the TPA and dish out our latest bit of TPA kit, a nifty torch pen that projects "TAX CUTS PLEASE", which have proved extremely popular.

In fact, a lot of organisations have got them – charities, pressure groups, internal Tory organisations, businesses and so on. Why, though, are there public sector organisations here, paid for by the taxpayer?

At a quick glance I can spot at least 11 public sector exhibitors, each of whom must have paid thousands for a stand. Why are the Standards Board, the Equality and Human Rights Commission or the Ordnance Survey coughing up our cash to come and lobby at a party political event? Even worse, there are a number of councils here – including Hampshire and Tameside?

They should be getting on with their jobs, not squandering money on self-promotion like this. The people they are meant to be serving would get a better deal if they stayed in their offices and got on with their jobs – they have no reason to be here, and taxpayers don’t cough up their hard-earned cash for them to strut their stuff on the political stage.

Thanks for reading.  If you agree with our campaign for lower taxes and want to know more about the TPA, you can register online, completely free of charge, here.

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Mark is a writer and political campaigner, ardent libertarian and eurosceptic.



  • Hardeep_Singh

    There appears to be much in terms of a “hoo-haa” whenever anyone mentions a financial industry bailout yet we’ve been ‘bailing’ out these public entities for a long time. What really brings the point home is the future pensions burden that these ‘nothing better to do than PR’ public servants will cost us in years to come.

  • Freedom to Prosper

    I went to the Southport Flower Show a couple of years ago and the Benefits Agency had a stand! I assumed they were keen gardeners.

  • Hardeep_Singh

    LOL :) -

  • Tim

    As long as they were there to lobby in support of your ‘cut council PR’ campaign…

  • Steve

    What are the TPA at Tory conference for, Mark? Of course you’re not funded out of taxation, but many of the issues are the same. You still need to get value for money out of your trip, because you have limited resources and important goals to advance. Presumably you think that the benefit to your organisation from attending conference is greater than the cost – yes? Is it possible that the benefit to some publicly funded organisations of attending Tory conference is also greater than the cost? How can attending Tory conference benefit an organisation?
    To put it another way, here are two possible ways of looking at conference attendance:
    1) It’s a waste of money (this would make it OK, albeit stupid, for the TPA to attend, but bad for public sector organisations to attend using taxpayers’ money).
    2) It can be a good use of money, if it helps to advance the aims of your organisation (this would make it OK for both the TPA and public sector organisations to attend, so long as they did useful work while they were there).
    Which of these do you think is closest to the truth? Do you regret attending conference?

  • http://www.taxpayersalliance.com Mark Wallace

    Steve, your fundamental error is you seem to have got confused about what the TPA does compared to public sector organisations. We have the task of campaigning for tax cuts and political policy changes to improve the way the country is governed – lobbying, campaigning and reacting at the party conference is part of our task. The job of organisations like Tameside Council, on the other hand, is to deliver services in Tameside. Can you tell me where their mission means they should be paying for a costly stand at each conference purely saying how great they think they are?

  • lee d

    civil servants love the chelsea flower show as well

  • novlangue

    Oh, sorry, thought you meant immigration…