Over at the Liberal Conspiracy website, the blogger Unity has responded to our Palestinian Hate Education since Annapolis report.  Unfortunately, despite berating us for keeping the report to four pages (which we certainly won't apologise for, we're trying to influence busy people) he clearly hasn't taken the time to read it, or think about it.

We didn't just provide radical quotes from the Palestinian territories and the amount spent there and casually assert a connection.  However, we also don't accept that unless we can find the British Government signing cheques for radical schoolbooks or TV programmes there isn't an issue, as the report says:

"In total Britain therefore gave nearly £100 million in aid to the Palestinian territories. At the same time there is extensive evidence that the authorities in the Palestinian territories are supporting television, radio and newspapers that promote hatred and violence, and school textbooks that radicalise young Palestinians.

Donations to the Palestinian territories create a responsibility to ensure that the Palestinian Authority does not misuse its budget. That responsibility exists whether British taxpayers are directly supporting the promotion of hatred and violence or providing the Palestinian Authority with funds that it can use to do the same or providing services that Palestinian authorities would otherwise be expected to provide, freeing up room in their budget to use as they like.

That responsibility to take account not just of how a donation is spent, but the broader activities of the recipient, is reflected in the Quartet Principles, which laid out a set of rules that the Palestinian Authority must comply with in order to receive direct aid. It has also been reflected in law, in a case in the United States where it was ruled that charities must be held liable if they give money to groups that engage in terrorist acts, even if they stipulated the funds were for humanitarian purposes."

That's why the report doesn't read like a piece of financial detective work.  The fact that Western countries, donating to the Palestinian territories, haven't explicitly signed cheques for extremist projets, but have financed them by providing general assistance to the authorities there, is exactly our point.  Indirectly supporting hate education doesn't create a paper trail but is just as harmful to the long term prospects for peace in the region.

Unity may disagree with that argument but in his post he doesn't engage with it, which is a shame.

The situation can be improved, again from our report:

"Donations to the Palestinian territories can have more positive effects. The Palestinian Authorityʼs signing up to the Quartet Principles – which require that they take certain steps such as recognising Israel's right to exist – is due, in no small part, to donor pressure. The problem is not that we give aid to the Palestinian territories, which is vital for a people with few other sources of income, but that we focus our resulting influence solely on the question of whether the Palestinian Authority is preparing the necessary groundwork for peace with Israel.

We need to broaden our priorities and do all we can to ensure that the Palestinian Authority is preparing the Palestinian population for peace. More than 42 per cent of the Palestinian population are under 15 years old.14 Their attitudes will shape the future of any peace process. The very best of treaties will not be able to guarantee peace in the medium to long term if a generation of Palestinians are growing up indoctrinated to hate Israel and the non-Muslim world. As John F. Kennedy said, “peace does not rest in the charters and covenants alone. It lies in the hearts and minds of all people.”"

Sunder Katwala, General Secretary of the Fabian Society, is still persisting in his faintly ludicrous attempt to try and define our group for us.  Apparently, instead of debating issues he prefers some kind of taxonomical debate over how we should be described.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has no party preference.  The slide Mr. Katwala thinks is so important merely highlighted a number of groups that have promoted the limited government, free market views generally associated with conservatism in the United Kingdom.  The Conservative Party is often seen as a part of that movement and so is the TaxPayers’ Alliance.  That doesn’t mean that we owe any kind of loyalty to the Conservative Party or have any preference for them.  We have criticised and praised all parties at various points and have no institutional preference for any of them above any other.

Both the British National Party and the Fabian Society have promoted increased government intervention in the economy.  Does that mean the Fabians have a party preference for the BNP?

Clearly not, though they can be described as both being members of the broad group pushing for a greater role for the state in the economy.  In the same way, our preference for smaller, more efficient government and free markets makes us a part of a broad movement, often described as conservative, but does not mean we have an institutional preference for a particular political party that has taken up similar objectives.

As to Mr. Katwala’s list of approved frames in journalistic reporting on the TaxPayers’ Alliance, there are many ways of describing our group.  We aren’t going to go dictating to journalists which they should use.

Journalists may choose to highlight our ideological position, and there are a thousand ways of doing so.  They could also highlight that we are Britain’s leading, independent, grassroots campaign for lower taxes and less waste in public spending.

To be balanced, if they want to focus on ideological positions, they should do so across the ideological spectrum.  Too often journalists preface right-wing groups or individuals with their ideological preference but avoid doing so with left-wing groups.  If we’re the right-wing anti-taxation campaign, The TaxPayers’ Alliance then the Fabians are the left-wing, pro-taxation campaign, the Fabian Society.

In our view it would be better, when discussing political campaigns like ours, to leave all this ad hominem nonsense behind.

As far as Mr. Katwala’s token attempt to address the substance of our positions goes, the TaxPayers’ Alliance exists as a response to a particular set of circumstances prevailing at the start of the twenty first century.  We are opposed to all tax rises as the British public is bearing far too high a burden already.  As a pragmatic group, we’re not here to speculate about the hypothetical scenarios in which our mission might need to be reviewed.

There is an interesting post over at ConservativeHome today by Cllr Neil Reddin from the London Borough of Bromley. In it he argues that the TaxPayers' Alliance should set up a consultancy which could charge councils for advice on how to save money. It's a point worth answering, and the article raises several other important points about the role of the TPA as a campaign group.

First, let me make very clear that we have no intention whatsoever of becoming a consultancy. Not only is this not our function, but it would frankly be hypocritical for the TPA to sustain itself by harvesting taxpayers' cash. As has already been pointed out, there are already an army of local government management consultants and sadly their ability or willingness to produce sizeable, radical savings for councils is currently proving questionable.

Ultimately, the TPA has a different, more fundamental function. We don't believe it is desirable or indeed possible for one body to personally micromanage every council around the country into doing a good job at a lower cost. Instead, we believe it is necessary to change the structure of local government and public opinion on tax and spend.

Government after government makes the mistake of thinking that the best way to solve a system which is malfunctioning is to try to personally micromanage every decision, process and policy right around the country. Arguably, many of the problems in local government today are down to Margaret Thatcher's decision to centralise control of local government finances and policies because she felt that "loony" local councils were getting things wrong. However, the huge rise in council tax in recent years twinned with the continued implementation of policies that local residents oppose but are not allowed to change demonstrates that that approach hasn't worked.

It won't work for an individual like the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government or an organisation like the TPA to promise that they can somehow order everyone to do things correctly. Instead, you need a system where far more policies are controlled locally, where local decision making is directly accountable to the people of the area and where the majority of the council's money is raised locally. Local populations must be free to run things as they wish, even if the Government, or the TPA, think they are getting it wrong, as long as they are also paying for their decisions.

Whether such radical structural change happens or not, achieving lower taxes and better government also requires public support. People would like to have lower council tax, but the TPA have a responsibility to demonstrate where spending is excessive or inefficient so people believe tax cuts are possible. That is why we carry out the Council Spending Uncovered series of research papers every year, providing national comparisons that no-one else has ever produced for how every council across the country spends money on publicity, pensions, payroll and senior management.

It is telling that despite the huge scope of these reports, dealing as they do with over 400 councils for each paper as well as the technicalities of each policy area, they have not been challenged in terms of accuracy. Using Freedom of Information Requests, councils' own accounts and painstaking checking and re-checking, our numbers are accurate and reliable – whether you agree with our conclusions or not. Indeed, we have a standing invitation to councils that if the numbers are wrong we will gladly correct them, and we have only very rarely needed to do so.

One criticism which councils do raise is actually something that only they themselves can solve. Whenever figures are published, a host of councils are guaranteed to cry "but you should see the detailed breakdown, then you'd understand that some of it might be justified". We would love to be able to get even more detail about how each council's spending breaks down, but we're limited by the culture of secrecy that currently surrounds public expenditure, meaning that even using Freedom of Information laws it is a huge logistical and occasionally legal battle to get councils to release the data. Changing that culture and making council finances fully transparent automatically is a major priority and is something where councillors themselves must take the lead, and we are happy to support them in doing so.

For example, I had the privilege of visiting Windsor and Maidenhead council recently to support their announcement that they will be publishing every item of expenditure over £500 (pictured right). We're enthusiastic about supporting other councils that want to do this, and as Cllr Reddin suggests I'd be delighted to meet with any councillors of any political stripe across the country who are interested in doing the same thing.

In fact, we regularly meet with councillors, and have an open invitation to any council who would like us to come and speak to their group or local party association about the way in which things can be improved to provide better value for taxpayers.

All too often, local politicians try to dodge legitimate criticism of their local administration by simply blaming central government. In return, Whitehall and Westminster blame local councils for everything going wrong. The truth is that responsibility is shared between the two and neither should be let off the hook – it is right that we should criticise each when criticism is deserved.

To achieve our aims, the TPA wants to work productively with politicians at national and local level. Increasingy, Ministers and Shadow Ministers are supporting our work on local government, for example all three main parties now support transparency on town hall senior staff remuneration. Correspondingly, I would urge councillors to get on board with the TPA's campaigning – particularly to get reform of the flawed and failing influence of national government on local authorities.

It would be a missed opportunity for local government if they allowed themselves to be so irked by occasional criticism of local policies or pet projects that they refused to team up with us to campaign against the flood of regulations, directives and meddling forced on them by Whitehall. My message to councillors is this: we may not always agree on everything, but together we could achieve a huge amount to free you from central Government's dead hand and to free taxpayers from all the costs and disappointment that brings with it.

Any councillors wishing to join the campaign can do so for free here, or to invite a TPA speaker to your local council group or political association, please email [email protected]

It's a rare occasion – indeed an event for the diary – today. I agree with something the Local Government Association have said. Yes, the people who normally spend their time arguing for higher council tax and more town hall bureaucrats have produced an eminently sensible piece of work. They are calling on councils to ditch the use of jargon and management gobbledegook.

The report lists 200 examples of jargon that the LGA wants to see the back of, such as "indicators of beaconicity", "coterminosity" and my personal bugbear "actioned" (used instead of saying "done").

Whils there are certainly some words on the list that seem to have been added to pad it out to 200, and I certainly wouldn't want the words "democratic mandate" to vanish from town halls, this is a good step in the right direction. It's a pity that local government has got into such a state that it needs slapping round the face and telling to use plain english, but it clearly does.

The latest news about Sir Fred Goodwin's pension is jaw-dropping. Not only has he apparently been allowed a multi-million pound lump sum, but Lord Myners has confessed that when he was told in advance that Goodwin's pension would be "enormous", he simply did not bother to find out the details.

This is either wilfully bad or incompetent - either way, Myners has let taxpayers down severely. As for which it is, let's put it this way: Myners is denying that he was wilfully bad…

As an aside, it is interesting to note that having poured hundreds of billions into the banks, nationalised them and pledged to manage them better and use them as tools to help the economy, at the first sign of criticism over mismanagement the Government are now claiming that Goodwin's deal is "a matter for the Board of RBS, not the Government." They can't have it both ways.

Sunder Katwala, General Secretary of the Fabian Society, thinks he has ‘outed’ us as partisans on the basis of a slide in a presentation by our Chief Executive, Matthew Elliott:

“Assuming that Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive, no longer wants to defend the Taxpayers Alliance's public statements that they are not "on the opposite side of the political spectrum" to Labour, and that "they don't have a party preference", will he kindly now gracefully withdraw that and cease this trust eroding double-talk to different audiences? (I can't see that a weasel words defence based on whether you capitalise conservative or not would do anything more than keep digging – though Elliott's slides go for the capital C "Conservatives in Britain" just to close that route off.”

Take a look at the slide.  You’ll notice that both uses of the term “Conservative” come at the beginning of a sentence.  Now, and I hope Mr. Katwala is paying careful attention, that means it isn’t necessarily the proper noun ‘Conservative’ (i.e. a partisan for the Conservative party) but either the proper noun or the start of a sentence.

So, it could be either but there is plenty of evidence that even the most politically naive could use to discover that Matthew isn’t describing the TPA as a partisan, Conservative, organisation.  Mr. Katwala himself hints at one example of many examples, the cross-party think tank Reform, but there is a more obvious one: the UKIP.  I don’t think that a list of partisan, Conservative organisations would include another party.

The phrase “conservative movement” or “conservative” is used a lot to describe the broad, centre-right, movement in the United Kingdom.  Of course, some people think that doesn’t reflect the libertarian strand in the British centre right properly, but for the lack of a better term “conservative” works.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance has no loyalty to any political party.  As well as criticising the Government in no uncertain terms when they get things wrong, we’ve criticised the Conservatives many times.  Sometimes they get wound up and attack us back, and then we respond in turn.

As a former student of the London School of Economics – set up by the Webbs, I respect the intellectual heritage of the Fabian Society however much I disagree with its objectives and analysis.  It is incredibly disappointing to see it reduced to this kind of foolish sniping.

This is yet another sign that we’re getting our message across; the upholders of the cosy, high-spending consensus are getting desperate.

• Britain gave nearly £100 million in aid to the Palestinian territories in 2007.
• This money supports attempts to indoctrinate the Palestinian population to support the continuation of violent conflict.
• New evidence that Hate Education continues to be spread in the media and children’s text books.

Following the conflict in Gaza and the agreement by the Palestinian Authority and Israeli Government to seek a two state solution at Annapolis, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) is launching a new study into how British taxpayers’ money supports hate education in the Palestinian territories.  As a significant proportion of this money (around £35 million) is being donated through the European Union and other member states also make bilateral donations, the report is being launched in six languages with partner organisations from France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Slovakia.
 
Read the full report here (PDF).

The context

• Britain donated nearly £100 million in aid to the Palestinian territories in 2007.  That is made up of £63.6 million that the Department for International Development (DFID) spent in the area and Britain’s share of the €420 million the EU spent on aid to the Palestinian territories, around £35 million.

• Donations to the Palestinian territories create a responsibility to ensure that the Palestinian Authority does not misuse its budget.  That responsibility exists whether British taxpayers are directly supporting the promotion of hatred and violence, providing the Palestinian Authority with funds that it can use to do the same or providing services that Palestinian authorities would otherwise be expected to provide, freeing up their budget to use as they like.

• 42% of the Palestinian population are under 15 years old.

• The Palestinian media is dominated by official newspapers, radio stations and television channels, paid for by the Palestinian Authority’s budget which is in turn supported by British donations.  That media frequently broadcasts statements that advocate the continuation of violent struggle instead of pursuing peace.Statements encouraging hatred and violence in the Palestinian media
   

"Palestine is our dream. Brothers, Oh Fatah's loyal masses the land is thirsty [for martyr blood] […] Jaffa, Haifa and Acre are calling. Ramallah.. Nablus and Gaza: "When will we meet and break the chains?" To Jerusalem march millions of Martyrs"

- Ahmed Dughmus, 8 January 2008

“It doesn't mean that we don't want the 1948 borders [all of Israel], but in our current political program, we [PA] say we want a state on the 1967 borders […] We [Palestinians] were created on this land in order to liberate it, to live on it, to continue as people of Ribat [Religious war]. We are on the land of Ribat and must remain [on it] until Resurrection.”

- Najat Abu Bakr, Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, 26 February 2008

Samir Kuntar crushed the head of four-year-old Eynat Haran with his rifle, he also killed her father. He was serving four life sentences for murder when he was released in a prisoner exchange with Hezbollah. However, the PA portrayed Mr Kuntar's release, in June 2008, as a great victory and Mr Kuntar as a man to respect and admire.
 
The official newspaper of the Palestinian Authority, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, reported that “President Mahmoud Abbas congratulated yesterday's exchange of prisoners and bodies of Martyrs. The president sent blessings to Samir Kuntar's family.” Furthermore, Ahmad Dahbur, former undersecretary of the PA Ministry of Culture, wrote "Blessings to the free heroes and their head, the heroic fighter Samir Kuntar, and blessings to the spirit of the heroic Dalal Mughrabi and to the friends of the heroes.”

23 – 25 June 2008

 “There are diseases like smallpox, that can be eradicated, but the disease that was inflicted on the Palestinian people and the Arab nation in general, that's the Jewish disease, the Zionist disease, which is a cancerous disease, that started with occupying and taking over lands in 1904 […] Those (Jews), from 1904 to 1947, reached 605,000. That’s the cancer that spreads over the lands.”

- Adnan Ayash, History Professor, 5 June 2008

There are more examples in the full report, which can be downloaded here (PDF).

Matthew Sinclair, Research Director at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said:

“British taxpayers’ money must not support propaganda that incites violence in the Middle East.  The Government needs to accept that donations create responsibilities. We must ensure that the Palestinian Authority doesn’t use the financial freedom our donations provide to indoctrinate its people, particularly the huge number of young people whose attitudes are so important to ending the conflict.  Instead, we need to insist that they work to prepare their people to accept a peaceful compromise.”

The issue of Parliamentary expenses and allowances will be back in the news today with the publication of the official list of ministerial interests, which sees ministers declare not only their own financial interests but also those of family members. The rumbling on of this and various other stories is – as well as a possible source on controversy, depending on what emerges – a continuing reminder of the complexity of the system of expenses and allowances which operates in our Parliament.

With a blizzard of different allowances and expense accounts, a whole book devoted to the rules and a special, if not particularly competent, department in the House of Commons is apparently still not enough to properly police the system.

One example to rear its head recently is this vexed issue of second homes for MPs. The Sunday Herald recently revealed that a number of Scottish MPs – Tommy McAvoy, Charles Kennedy, Alistair Darling and John Reid - are claiming allowances for second homes despite already owning flats in London. Obviously, if someone already owns a London flat outright but chooses to make money by renting it out and then living at taxpayers' expense, that is wrong. These expenses exist in order to allow people who could not otherwise afford to to represent their constituents in Parliament. Personal poverty should be no barrier to being elected to Westminster, but that does not mean that those who already own a property in London should be able to cash in by renting whilst getting another home free on the taxpayer.

When the Herald approached us, we commented along those lines: "The ACA is there to help MPs represent their constituents, not to help them build up a property portfolio at taxpayers' expense. It is clear the whole system needs tightening." Since then, there have been some vocal objections to this comment, and some total silences from other MPs named in the article that are an interesting indication of the as yet unpublished details of the issue, and an argument for greater transparency.

One MP, Tommy McAvoy, has been in touch to give more details on his case. He doesn't own his flat outright, he has got it specifically on a buy-to-let mortgage and "not a penny of taxpayers' money" has ever been spent on it. Those circumstances put him in the clear, because it's not a flat that he could just stay in and save taxpayers' money instead of renting it out – if he didn't rent it he would either have to sell it, or he would have to live in it himself and then charge that to taxpayers, which would make little difference (or might be more expensive, depending on the size of the mortgage). By being open he has allayed our concerns and undoubtedly the concerns of his constituents.

By contrast to Mr McAvoy's enthusiasm to explain the details of his circumstances, the other MPs in the article - John Reid, Alistair Darling and Charles Kennedy – have been notably silent. Of course, it could be that they are in the same situation but have for some reason decided that they are happy to leave a cloud of suspicion hanging over themselves. Just as likely, though, is that they are not in the same situation as Mr McAvoy – either having been in Parliament and earned sufficient cash to buy their first Parliamentary expenses flat, rent it out and then move onto another on which they can claim further expenses or, in the case of Alistair Darling, having reached a position that comes with a free house on Downing Street, perhaps decided to simply rent out the flat they were claiming on expenses now they are put up somewhere else at taxpayers' expense.

This issue is a complex one precisely because of the potential for such wrongful behaviour to be withing the rules and because of the lack of transparency in the system. It is wrong that, under the rules, an MP could own a six storey house in Westminster but choose to rent it out and then charge the cost of another flat on expenses. That must be stopped by a tightening up of the rules, in order to avoid a system introduced to allow the non-wealthy into Parlaiment simply becoming a tool for self-enrichment. To tighten up the rules, if MPs cannot all be trusted to do the honourable thing and avoid claiming expenses where they aren't necessary, then we will need full disclosure on relevant assets. If MPs are bothered about the possible security implications, then at minimum they should have to disclose to a stern and strict Parliamentary fees office, though I would rather this was put in the hands of the people rather than a watchdog or a bureaucrat.

It's amazing that while the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who lives in a free house at taxpayers' expense, declares that he owns and rents out a flat in London, voters and taxpayers are not being told whether they've paid towards that flat or how much money he is making from it. Proper transparency would give people that information and allow them to judge people like Mr Darling and Mr McAvoy firmly and fairly. In that system, suspicion and criticism would never have fallen on Mr McAvoy, and people would have the right to see and judge for themselves about the rest.

The weekend saw another victory in the drive for transparency in how taxpayers' money is spent. After the Conservatives a month ago and the Labour Party a fortnight ago, the Lib Dems have completed the hat-trick by committing to publishing the details of senior public employees' pay and perks.

This shows the great benefit of having the parties in competition to satisfy public demand. Our work in recent years to publicise the high – and swiftly rising – levels of senior salaries through the Town Hall Rich List and the Public Sector Rich List made this an issue, and created a public demand for more transparency on the topic.

As soon as the Tories made a pledge on publishing council senior remuneration, the Government had to follow suit to avoid being outflanked, and the Lib Dems have done the same. The next step is to encourage them to go further.

Interestingly, the quality of the three parties' pledges is not uniform, and there is more levelling-up to do. Here is the detail for each of the three:

Labour: Full publication of pay and perks for senior local government staff

Conservative: Full publication of pay and perks for senior local government staff, and detailed transparency of public spending in general

Liberal Democrat: Full publication of pay and perks for senior staff throughout the public sector

So all three agree that town hall senior staff should have their remuneration published. However, the Lib Dems are lagging behind the Tories in transparency on wider public spending, the Tories are lagging behind the Lib Dems on publishing the remuneration of senior staff in the public sector beyond town halls, and the Government are lagging behind both parties on both counts.

The public want to see how their money is spent, the technology is easily available to do so and such transparency can bring great benefits in terms of accountability. The first hat trick shows that the campaign is working – we must now press on for more.

The Axe The Beer Tax campaign, which is opposed to the Government's excessive tax on beer, has produced a nifty Beer Taxometer that lets you calculate how much beer tax you currently pay and how much you will have to pay under the Government's planned tax rises:

The punitive tax on beer, which is founded on a combination of the Government's worst instincts on money grabbing and health nannying, is not just unfair to people who fancy a pint after a hard day's work, it's driving hundreds of pubs out of business. Click here to learn more about Axe the Beer Tax and to lend your support to their campaign.

It emerged last night that the Welsh Assembly Government plans to spend £42 million refurbishing its headquarters in Cathays Park.

Yes, £42 million. A staggering amount of money. More than it cost to build the Synedd, or the Liberty Stadium in Swansea. And this is for refurbishment, not building from scratch.

Why do they need to do it? Is the building not perfectly serviceable? Have people been poisoned by the aircon, or made ill by the lack of light? No, the Assembly has cited health and safety reasons, but has also cited 'inflexible accommodation, unable to respond to changing business needs' and 'public and stakeholder image diminished by outdated and inefficient accommodation'. 

If rewiring and other maintanence issues need to be addressed, they should be. I can see that, it's an old, big building. The last thing we want is to put people in danger. But don't tell me that's going to cost £42 million. The point has been made that it is an incredibly large building and therefore it will cost more to do. Fair enough, but not that much.

The bottom line is that this refurbishment must be being done to an incredibly high specification. We'd all like to work in smart offices with up-to-date everything, but right now there are more important things we need to be spending this money on. And should the Assembly really be worrying this much about its 'image' at a time when ordinary taxpayers are struggling to put food on the table?

We're in a recession, and across the country councils are telling us they are facing growing demand for public services and reduced revenue. In this light, it seems just plain wrong that so much money is being pumped into something that is not entirely necessary, instead of into schools and hospitals.

It's a question of spending priorities, and this vast sum of money (or a large part of it that is not used to meet health and saftey requirements) could be put towards improving frontline services or cutting council tax for people in Wales. Asked if they'd prefer that or the Cathays Park refurbishment, I am pretty sure they would choose the former.

An inevitable defence of this ludircously expensive project is that it will put more money into the economy when no one else is spending. This Keynesian argument has been made in various forms over the last weeks and months, and I think it's tosh - particularly in this case. If anything other than essential maintenance is taking place, then the government would just be spending money for the sake of it, and would be putting yet more debt onto the public credit card when we are already in dire straits. This is no meaningful defence and, if this is in any way in the minds of those considering the project, they should cast it out, and focus on the bear necessities and not a penny more.

It seems the Welsh Assembly Government has forgotten where the money for this project will come from: ordinary people's pockets. And they need to hang on to that money to pay their bills and feed their families, now more than ever.

Further to my earlier post about the greed of some local councillors, and the Councillors' Commission's shoddy call for snouts to dig deeper into the trough, I'm glad to see that one council at least is doing the right thing.

According to the Local Government Chronicle, Scarborough Borough Council – which looked like it was going to vote for gold-plated pensions for councillors – has instead voted not to give councillors access to the scheme. Good on them!

In case anyone suggests this is a small or insignificant bill, it's interesting to note that the Borough's democratic and administrative manager calculated that the cost of all councillors joining the scheme in full would add 0.65% to council tax. That's quite a bill, and one that Scarborough's councillors were right to avoid.