Major landscape poll finds strong shift in public attitudes towards tax Council Tax is second biggest financial worry for UK families after rising utility bills Big majority think last ten years of higher public spending has been used badly 63% think Ministers lack... Read more...
Ian Johnston, the president of the Police Superintendents Association, is denouncing Whitehall crime-fighting targets as a "shambles": "He maintains that performance targets set inWhitehall are preventing senior officers from giving the public thepolicing they want. They have no credibility within the police and do nothing to improve the public's perception... Read more...
From the Telegraph today: "Almost every comprehensive in England has been turnedinto a "specialist school" - receiving thousands of pounds in extramoney every year to champion particular subjects. Under the scheme, schools specialise in technology, art, sport, languages, business, maths or science. Buta study by academics at Cambridge and Staffordshire... Read more...
Three cheers to our Liverpool Organiser Veronica Hind. She managed to get a letter in the Liverpool Daily Post speaking out in favour of our report into University non-courses. For your interest it is reprinted here: "Letter: You say - What a waste Veronica Hind 6 September 2007Liverpool Echo... Read more...
Our reporter on the trail... before he contracted foot and mouth According to the "usual sources" (ie shameless leaks), the report on the Pirbright foot and mouth outbreak will finger the government's own virus lab, and not their nextdoor neighbour Merial.Investigators have apparently identified five separate breaches... Read more...
Yesterday the Liberal Democrats attacked our study on green taxes. They make two arguments: 1. More recent studies, they cite the example of the Stern Review, show a higher cost of carbon.2. We haven’t properly accounted for externalities other than CO2 emissions from road transport, their examples... Read more...
The Walsall Observer reported today that Walsall Council’s £7million scheme designed to help vulnerable members of the community has been labelled ‘poor’ by Government watchdogs. Condemned for its lack of any leadership or direction the Audit Commission only saw fit to award the ‘Supporting People’ programme a zero rating,... Read more...
Yesterday the Telegraph reported that a new Economist index will reveal Britain lagging behind other countries of similar income in the quality of life it affords its residents. The difference has a lot to do with our underperforming public services. While in the private sector we lead the world... Read more...
The BBC's the one on the left and the RPA's in the middle Updates on two of the running sores causing taxpayers so much discomfort: 1. BBCThe BBC has been panicked into axing its Comic Relief-style special about climate change. A spokesperson says:"The BBC is committed to programmes about... Read more...
The Centre for Social Cohesion reports that libraries are spending public funds to stock books that promote Islamic extremism and glorify terrorism. The libraries in London, Birmingham and Blackburn stocked books by convicted preachers Abu Hamza and Abdullah Al-Faisal. The report's main focus, however, is on public libraries in Tower... Read more...
It’s not just throwing money at a problem, but how much it takes to make it go away. Such is the mentality of the public service Trade Unions who, trying to revive some kind of 80s militancy, are threatening to strike in Town Halls up and down the country and... Read more...
Interactive forum for TPA Supporters in St. Albans TPA organiser Martin Thornhill has set up a yahoo group to help St. Albans TaxPayers’ Alliance activists and supporters coordinate campaigns and get in touch, share ideas and debate the issues. We’re an interactive, grassroots campaign where no idea is too small or... Read more...
Even though we got today’s non-job from a supporter’s research into their local council, we have gone through the Guardian Society jobs pages and, naturally, found some startling adverts for local government jobs. Since I’ve been trawling through the Guardian jobs pages, I’ve seen the odd job over £100,000 (remember... Read more...
This week’s non-job has been fed to us by a supporter, Donald Grant. Epping Forest District Council is advertising for an ‘overpayments officer’. Mr. Grant made an interesting comment in the email he sent us: ‘why don’t they just get it right in the first place?’ It’s one thing that... Read more...
CAMPAIGN UPDATE 4 September 2007 New Research The Case Against Further Green Taxes The TaxPayers’ Alliance has released the first audit of environmental taxation in the UK alongside a new YouGov poll of more than 2,000 adults commissioned into public attitudes towards green taxes. The report applies the conclusions... Read more...
Derby TaxPayers’ Alliance Organiser Dave Black has taken the fight to Derby councillors over their incompetent management of Derby council. In a letter to Derby newspapers he slates the council’s “barefaced effrontery” in claiming “they are improving services, when the most comprehensive cuts for a decade are ruthlessly imposed”. Again... Read more...
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne writes an op-ed in the Times today in which he sets out overall Tory spending plans for the next three years. Below is a fisk of his article setting out the strengths and weaknesses in his arguments. "Tories cutting services? That’s a pack of lies The... Read more...
Birmingham City Council members and staff have been jetting off to foreign climes spanning nearly every continent of the globe (see map), including jaunts to the Caribbean, Venice and Australia amongst others, and all at the expense of the local taxpayer. The response to a Freedom of Information request submitted... Read more...
Our New Romney organiser, Councillor Wendy Nevard, has been a real gem in our campaign to expose local government waste. She bravely stood up to councillors and officers willing to waste £10,000 of taxpayers’ money on goalposts and has kept us busy with news of constant local government waste down... Read more...
The Bruges Group has published a report exposing how the EU takes £1,000 from every British man, woman and child a year. UK Independence Party MEP Gerard Batten, who authors the report, unravels the damaging costs the EU is imposing on British business and taxpayers. This report highlights how over-regulation... Read more...
GOVERNMENT RAISING £10 BILLION MORE FROM GREEN TAXES THAN REQUIRED TO COVER COST OF UK’S CARBON FOOTPRINT EVERY UK HOUSEHOLD ALREADY OVER-PAYING GREEN TAXES TO THE TUNE OF MORE THAN £400 A YEAR NEW POLL SHOWS BIG MAJORITY BELIEVE POLITICIANS ARE USING GREEN TAXES AS A REVENUE RAISING MEASURE FIRST... Read more...
Education, education, education.And as everyone should have understood, that was going to cost money, money, money.Since Labour came to power, spending on Britain's state schools has more than doubled. Last year they spent £44.7bn, up from £22.2bn in 1996-97 (see here and prior PESAs). Even adjusting for general inflation, the... Read more...
The Express today (not online) reports that the Government has been accused of corporate manslaughter over its failure to provide the armed forces with properly armoured vehicles for patrolling in Afghanistan. The number of deaths through negligence in the public sector is truly staggering, our high hospital infection rates alone... Read more...