An interesting piece by Rupert Darwall in today's Wall Street Journal explains how tax has once again become political centre-stage... "The first signs of a taxpayer revolt came last October. With Mr. Brown poised to call an election to capitalize on his momentum in the polls, the Conservatives announced they... Read more...
The Telegraph ask an important question, how should the NHS be reorganised? Government plans for new polyclinics are facing furious protests and, despite spending £1 billion, government initiatives have not offered significant increases in choice that might drive improvements in standards for patients. The problem is that the... Read more...
Now the precedent has been set, how much more will it cost taxpayers to maintain the Government's majority? There are a lot of votes coming up and a lot of unpopular and controversial measures to be discussed. If there are rebels too principled to be... Read more...
An interesting piece in the FT today reports that a House of Lords report has concluded that the Government's non-dom tax plans are "essentially unworkable", and will damage Britain's competitiveness. No great surprise there, but the Lords report also criticised the unfinished nature of much of the non-dom legislation... Read more...
This week’s non-job from South Gloucestershire Council: “Community Engagement Manager£43,596 - £47,918 Under the direction of the Head of Safer and Stronger Communities:- To lead on the development, monitoring and implementation of policies, strategies and action to engage and strengthen the diverse communities in South Gloucestershire. ... Read more...
An interesting observation made in today's FT: opponents of the Lisbon Treaty (sorry, EU Constitution), both on the Left and on the Right, are arguing that it will threaten Ireland's 12.5 per cent corporation tax regime. Leave aside for the moment the extremely important argument about whether the EU... Read more...
In yesterday’s Birmingham Post Terry Grimley wrote under the headline ‘Manchester’s public transport billions are death for Brum’, and attempts to persuade us that the northern city will win out for their additional £3billion transport funding – their present for agreeing to impose this further tax on ordinary people who... Read more...
Governments of all stripes are guilty of confusing 'activity' with 'action'. Invariably ineffective, needless 'activity' is the source of much of the waste and bureaucracy which plagues us, of a politics which diverts attention from the real problems in a flurry of initiatives and expert studies. However in the realm... Read more...
How many times this year have we seen stories of local authorities prying into our lives? First it was Poole Council using anti-terror legislation to spy on a family for weeks just to be sure they sent their child to the school in the right catchment area. Next councils were... Read more...
With so many human rights abuses around the world, the United Nations Human Rights Council should be busy reporting on issues of enforced starvation, executions of people for their lifestyle choices and the denial of the vote to huge numbers of people around the world. Instead, they have turned their... Read more...
Lest anyone think that it's only MPs and MEPs who make a pretty penny out of the taxpayer in return for their public service, a post over at Iain Dale's Diary draws our attention to Councillors' "allowances". Iain's point is of course set against a party political background, but even... Read more...
Never ever doubt the tenacity of a TPA activist and heaven help a politician who gets in their way. Over the past week TPA activists have appeared in all sorts of press coverage, from TV and radio to running stories in local papers. Stephen Picot commented here on a... Read more...
Today's FT reports that the Government have become so worried about the number of companies being driven to Ireland by high-tax Britain that they are considering supporting EU tax harmonisation. In essence, having gone a long way towards ruining our economic competitiveness with tax and red tape, they have decided... Read more...
The announcement that The Public gallery in West Bromwich would be charging £6.95 for entry, after having already cost the taxpayer around £51million, saw the West Midlands TaxPayers’ Alliance comment in the Express & Star, on BBC Radio WM and on the BBC Midlands Today news show, and now bosses... Read more...
There are few parts of the public sector where the valour, skill and professionalism of those at the sharp end contrast so strongly with the incompetence, mismanagement and bungling of the bureaucrats in overseeing them than the contrast found in Defence. It is true that the impression is made starker... Read more...
Barbara Lockwood, a longstanding TPA campaigner and Council Tax protester, was in court yesterday charged with non-payment of half her Council Tax bill. Barbara maintains that her Council Tax has soared well above her ability to pay and as a result she’ll only pay for what she is getting from... Read more...
A lesson in how grand government schemes almost invariably fail to produce the desired results may once again have to be painfully learned. That's the conclusion of a new report by Ned Cazalet, an independent life assurance analyst, with, according to the FT, "a record of correctly forecasting industry trends".... Read more...
For some reason, the TPA seems to end up responding to an abnormally large number of stories about waste or other costly ideas dreamed up by Essex County Council - and today is no exception. I don't know if they're better (or should I say worse?) at thinking up ways... Read more...
Richard Balfe's call for the Conservatives to maintain the Union Modernisation Fund is utter foolishness: "When the Government set up the multimillion-pound modernisation fund three years ago for unions to draw upon, the Tories criticised the fund as a payback to the Labour Party’s main source of funding. But they... Read more...
A worrying story in today's FT reports that the 185 top wealth-creating companies in the UK paid 12 per cent of the added value they created in taxes last year, compared with 6 per cent in Germany and 8 per cent in France and Switzerland. This finding comes from the... Read more...
Despite the fact that today’s Express & Star reports a row of seemingly monumental proportions at Wolverhampton City Council over the utterly piddling matter of what time their monthly scrutiny board meetings take place (should it be at 5pm or 5.30pm? Who cares, get on with the job!), presumably all... Read more...
The Guardian reports that more parents now aspire for their children to go to university: "The proportion of parents who would send their children to a private school if they could afford it has increased by nine percentage points in the past four years, according to research commissioned by independent... Read more...
On the back of Stephen Glover's article in the Daily Mail, Tim Montgomerie at ConservativeHome has an interesting piece about changing the way our politicians interact with the state. He cites Maude's Law, which lays down that good policy is 10% brainwave, 10% idea development and 80% implementation This is... Read more...
I attended Tony Blair’s testimony to the International Development Select Committee this morning. He had come to give a disposition on Gaza as the Quartets representative. I entered the room surrounded by assorted representatives of NGOs such as Oxfam and some self appointed human rights monitors. Not the sort of... Read more...