Pricey bird The other day the excavators moved back into our local patch of Surrey woodland. Well, I say woodland, but actually these days it's more like a scene from the Battle of the Somme. Where once we had trees, we now have vast tracts of open muddy ground,... Read more...
Bournemouth Council, in all its arrogance, voted itself the proposed pay deal we tirelessly campaigned against over the past two weeks. Last Thursday the Council awarded themselves a 17% pay increase, the Cabinet gave themselves an astonishing 32% pay increase and the leader awarded himself a 34% pay increase. In... Read more...
8,500 retired NHS staff have retirement benefits worth £1 million Total bill of £8.5 billion The bill for public sector pensions is of growing concern for taxpayers facing huge bills for underfunded and over-generous pensions. In December 2007, the TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) revealed that there are almost 3,700... Read more...
When economists want to know what people think they try to avoid relying upon asking them. Surveys, opinion polls, personal anecdote and other ways in which people express their opinion can often be misleading or distorted. When and how a question is asked and how it is phrased can seriously... Read more...
There is a cheaper way to those bits of paper* One of this government's best known New Jerusalem targets is that 50% of our young people should be educated to degree level. But why? How did our "evidence based" rulers reach that conclusion? Especially with higher... Read more...
A recent report from the Reform think thank suggests that UK households spend an average of £1,200 a year on private health care. This amounted to nearly £30 billion in 2007. While much of this spending reflects the needs of families caring for disabled or elderly relatives, undermining the... Read more...
SEE UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE Tonight at 7PM Bournemouth Council vote on their allowances, which we have been campaigning and lobbying against for the past week. Thanks go to Jonathan Sheppard, Peter Roberts, Christopher Way, Linda Berkeley, Vivienne Reed, Ed Hallam, Mohammed Hasan, John Sheperd and... Read more...
The Telegraph reports a call by the British Medical Association for NHS independence: "An NHS constitution should be used to free the health service from the day-to-day interference of Government ministers, doctors' representatives have claimed." We absolutely agree. However, if you're going to make the NHS independent there are two... Read more...
All the selected and graded ones went to Granite Are we all up to speed with Northern Rock's offshore financing vehicle Granite? It has featured heavily in the debate this week as it finally dawned on everyone that a big chunk of NR's mortgage assets has already been... Read more...
Vince Cable, in yesterday's debate on the bill to nationalise Northern Rock, framed the essential question that the Government are not openly addressing but that is of paramount importance to the question of where Northern Rock goes from here over the next few years: "May I return to the central... Read more...
If you read between the lines of every non-job description you can see even more of your money going up in smoke. After getting over the initial shock that we – me, you, the taxpayers down the street – are paying for this non-job, you read on to find that... Read more...
Bake before serving The thing about rock cakes is that they need to be properly baked before serving. Mssrs Brown and Darling clearly haven't grasped that. Unsuprisingly, the Crock's rivals are now highly agitated about its unfair competitive advantage as a state bank. Unsurprising when Northern Rock... Read more...
Here at the WMTPA we strive to highlight the various ways that our public servants, often in local government, continue to plough our money in the wrong direction.With the services we pay for flagging, too often our representatives in local and central government get carried away with the sort of... Read more...
A warning from history We've already blogged George Osborne's latest tax speech, and our disappointment that he's still not prepared to offer a bankable pledge on cutting Labour tax'n'spend (see here). As far as we can see, there's no meaningful difference from what Darling set out in October. Read more...
Financial engineers sort out Northern Rock The government likes to pretend the Crock rescue won't cost taxpayers a bean. Thus yesterday, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Yvette Cooper, toured the studios (eg here) telling us that the government guarantees given to Northern Rock "have not been called... Read more...
This Thursday will see Bournemouth Council vote on its pay increases we detail here. Since last Thursday we’ve been lobbying hard for the full council to reconsider this plan and we have to keep up the pressure. How can it be right that a council loses a star rating from... Read more...
Northern Rock's assets should be run down gradually, maximising value to taxpayers and minimising the scale of the potential loss. That much is clear. In this scenario, jobs at Northern Rock will have to be shed.The Government has instead decided to try to keep Northern Rock going as a profitable... Read more...
The Government offered every inducement to private sector bidders for Northern Rock. It offered a heads you win, tails we lose deal whereby the taxpayer would foot the bill if things went wrong at the bank but a new owner could walk away with big profits if things turned around... Read more...
There's been a lot of coverage given to the latest proposal from "public health expert" and Chairman of Health England Professor Julian Le Grand, namely that the smoking ban has not gone far enough and smokers should have to buy a licence to purchase tobacco in future. Even if... Read more...
Dudley Council has been exposed for spending £110,000 per-year on bottled water. The report in today’s Express and Star comes ahead of tonight’s BBC Panorama programme, naming them as one of the worst culprits.Dudley Council are now disputing the figures despite the fact they were obtained through the Freedom of... Read more...
Dear TPA supporters, Thank you to all those who lobbied Bournemouth’s councillors this past weekend over their pay deal that would see their salaries rise by 17%, the cabinet by 32% and the leader by 34%. This pay deal comes after Bournemouth council dropped a star to a 2... Read more...
In his speech to Policy Exchange on Friday, George Osborne said: Read more...
Over here Chancellor Now that our dithering "government" has finally pulled the trigger on nationalising Northern Rock, taxpayers are formally and irrevocably on the hook for up to £110bn (we don't know how much because we haven't seen any proper accounts for months). For taxpayers, there are... Read more...
...may well be HM Revenue and Customs, now that the Serious Crime Act has come into power, giving HMRC "across the board" powers to listen in on phone calls, intercept emails and letters and bug homes and cars. Powers that were previously only granted for investigating drug and firearms offences... Read more...