Tax Havens: Myths and Facts
Another video on tax havens from the Centre for Freedom and Prosperity: Read more...
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Wolverhampton PCT spend £700,000 on 'lifestyle coaches'
According to today’s Express & Star, Wolverhampton City Primary Care Trust will be recruiting 25 lifestyle coaches at a cost of £700,000 in an effort to get smokers, drinkers and the overweight to kick their bad habits. These “lifestyle trainers” will be lurking around Wolverhampton in gyms, leisure centres,... Read more...
The Wider Implications Of Haringey
Everybody is appalled by the death of Baby P, but we need to understand that the implications go far beyond Haringey. According to Children's Secretary Balls: "When I met with the Chief Inspector, she told me that in her judgement the failings in management, oversight and practice identified by the... Read more...
Every one of the people matters, Mr Barroso
Who knows what Jose Manuel Barroso, President of the European Commission, and Peter Mandelson were thinking when he decided to take up lobbying for Britain to join the Euro again. As well as being politically insane, it would be economically foolish to join the Single Currency. Mr Barroso's comments, though, contain a... Read more...
Stoke bus stops cost almost £37,000 each
The Sentinel paper in Staffordshire has reported today that no less than £147,000 has been spent on just four ‘luxury modern bus stops’ for Burslem in Stoke in a move to regenerate the area with central Government funding. The bus stops, which were unveiled at the Christmas lights switch-on this... Read more...
Moving on from the TPA
Dear all, After two very energetic and enjoyable years, I am now moving on from the TPA. It has been an incredible experience working for such a dynamic campaign, and it has been very pleasing to play a part in the organisation’s rapid growth. We are now at a stage... Read more...
Crock Quality Check
Not quite as advertised Remember all those official assurances about how our £100bn would be safe with the Crock? The huge deluge of "comfort" from our rulers and betters that the guarantees would cost us nothing?No?Well, here's a reminder (and see all previous Crock blogs gathered here): FSA - "We... Read more...
Wolverhampton axe jobs from the frontline
Wolverhampton City Council are trying to make cuts to the tune of £41million in order to make up the gaping deficit in its finances. This translates to at least 150 council jobs, but the tone of an article published in today’s Express & Star suggests that frontline services will suffer.... Read more...
Demolishing the myth of record-breaking performance
It will be a strange week when someone other than the Government finds that education in Britain is improving. Report and after report brings researchers to the same conclusions: standards in education are collapsing, today's children are poorly prepared for later life, and that ultimately the British education system is... Read more...
The political parties don't deserve a penny
British politicians could do worse than take a leaf out of the Canadian Government's book this week, who are apparently going to abolish taxpayer-funded subsidies for political parties (Hat-tip to ConHome).There are few things less edifying than the sight of political parties which have failed to inspire the public to donate... Read more...
The BBC empire
The Financial Times reports that the BBC is currently in talks to buy Woolworths' share of a joint venture the two organisations set up in order to publish BBC DVDs. This deal is a reminder of how far the BBC has come from its core objective of producing quality programmes... Read more...
Non-job of the week
I loathe the smell of burning money in the morning. All that borrowing, going straight into the fire of local government bureaucracy. MFI may go broke this week, costing thousands of jobs, but there’s 575 new jobs in government, all paid for by the taxpayer. Our non-job this week comes... Read more...
Hammersmith & Fulham: The Council who could
An unusual event, today - good news from local government about council tax. The London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham have announced that for the third year running they will be cutting council tax by 3%. Congratulations from the TPA! Let's take a second to think about the true magnitude... Read more...
No matter how bad it gets...
...they still can't resist nannying us. Reflecting on the PBR, it's interesting that despite all of Alistair Darling's rhetoric about how seriously he was taking this crisis and how important the VAT cut will be to business and consumers, the Government's nanny state instincts still won out when it came to tax on cigarettes,... Read more...
Tax hikes sound the death knell of ambition
It's hard enough at the moment to get into the job market, let alone to progress up the ladder. My folks always told me: if you work hard and want to succeed, you'll get your rewards. Turns out, that's not always the case. In yesterday's Pre Budget Report, Alistair Darling announced measures that will not... Read more...
New research: Brown's borrowing will be double the debt needed to win World War One
Shocking new figures from the TaxPayers' Alliance reveal that the borrowing plans announced in yesterday's Pre-Budget Report will run up double the debt that Britain incurred winning the First World War. Total Debt increase 1914 - 1919 (2007 value): £255,106,544,018 Total Debt planned 2008/09 - 2013/14 (PBR): £512,000,000,000 (For full... Read more...
TPA's VED Victory saves taxpayers £465 million
One positive from yesterday's Pre-Budget report was the delaying of the unfair retrospective rise in Vehicle Excise Duty. The campaign the TPA spearheaded against the rising car tax has - for 2009/10 at least - saved motorists £465 million. This is a great success for the TPA and for all... Read more...
A noble resignation
Few people outside Islington will have heard of Cllr. Andrew Cornwell, the now former cabinet member for finance on Islington council. But they should do, for here we have a councillor resigning his cabinet post because of a council’s “waste, inefficiency, spending on refreshments, conference venues, travel costs and consultants”. ... Read more...
What a bunch of oinkers
TPA supporter Ian Taylor, a champion for giving us news on council waste, has come up with another shocking story of a Kent council using taxpayers’ money for lavish lunches. This time Canterbury City Council’s Lord Mayor has entertained 11 council worthies and the Archbishop of Canterbury. The news is... Read more...
Brown's Borrowing will be Double the Debt Needed to Win World War One
This short briefing sets out how, even accounting for RPI inflation, the borrowing needed to win the First World War was just half the amount that was set out for the years following the 2008 Pre-Budget Report. Read more...
Police say 'call AA' after vandals attack car
A man who called the police after a gang of youths overturned his girlfriends car was told to ‘ring the AA’ according to a report in today’s Express & Star. Simon White called his local station in Bloxwich after initially calling 999, but was referred to the breakdown recovery service... Read more...
TPA at the Bruges Group conference
On Saturday I went to the Bruges Group conference to give a speech entitled ‘big government is bad government’. When the video is uploaded this week I’ll put it on the site so you can have a look. Importantly, it was a timely conference looking at the costs of the... Read more...
New Research: Public Sector Rich List 2008
Details of 387 public sector employees earning over £150,000 194 public sector employees earn more than the Prime Minister 4 people on the public payroll earned more than £1m last year Senior executives enjoyed an average remuneration increase of 10.9% from 2006-07 to 2007-08 Now in its third edition, the... Read more...
New Research: How inept regulation, incompetent regulators and bad policies drove the financial crisis
As the economic crisis tightens its grip on the budgets of individuals, families and national governments, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) publishes the first comprehensive analysis of the inept regulation and poor policies that sowed the seeds for the current recession and made Britain particularly vulnerable to its effects. The report's... Read more...