In response to the news that the sovereign grant will temporarily increase: Harry Davis, Campaign Manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance: "These are clearly huge sums of money and the public are right to cast a sceptical eye when the public finances are still in such a dire state. Large renovation... Read more...
A copy of our letter to the Telegraph, published on 17 November 2016. Calls to slash stamp duty are welcome, but making sellers rather than buyers liable – as proposed by Pete Redfern, chief executive of the housebuilder Taylor Wimpey – would be nothing short of fiscal chicanery. The one... Read more...
If I were running a council which needed to get its finances in order, spending £350,000 on a referendum asking residents’ permission to take more of their money would not be top of my to-do list. Remarkably this is precisely what Liverpool Mayor, Joe Anderson, wants to do. He is proposing... Read more...
The treatment of pensioners’ income is often seen as one of the, if not the biggest headache in a merger of national insurance and income tax. As far as our proposals are concerned however, any problems are explanatory and could be politically painless with a comprehensive information campaign. Under the... Read more...
On Wednesday night (26 October) our local team in Hammersmith, which is being coordinated by local resident Mark, held their first get together to discuss campaigning in their area. These meetings are vitally important as we look to take our campaign across the country. The work we do from HQ... Read more...
The Taxpayers Protection Alliance in America released a damning report last week looking at the World Health Organization's (WHO) sub-agency that monitors tobacco policy. The report found that it is "failing taxpayers around the world and harming its own effort to reduce tobacco use". Naturally, they found wasteful spending aplenty too -... Read more...
This morning’s papers show what we have known for quite a long time: there are serious problems within the health service. The headlines alone make grim reading: Pointless treatments cost NHS £2bn a year – Times Ambulances wait nine hours outside A&E amid 'epidemic' of delays – Telegraph NHS trust... Read more...
On Wednesday Lord Ashton, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport told a Lords debate that BBC Studios would not have to carry out “full named disclosure”. This is unfortunately a step backwards for transparency, considering there are still uncertainties over the actual competitiveness of programme production... Read more...
Today the National Audit Office published its findings from its investigation into the Department for Transport’s grant of £30 million towards the construction of the Garden Bridge. It turns out that more than £20m of public money may have potentially been wasted. The controversial project requires £30m contributions from the... Read more...
Heading to Conservative Party Conference this year? Join us, alongside the IEA and the Free Enterprise Group, at our Think Tent for a variety of events with some fantastic speakers and panels. Take a look at the full line-up of events here Read more...
Today the Mayor of London announced a formal inquiry into the controversial Garden Bridge, which requires £60m of taxpayer’s money to meet its £185m total budget. The project has already had significant problems with questions over the transparency of the procurement process, planning hurdles and the inability to raise the... Read more...
Yesterday I debated the United Kingdom's approach to foreign aid on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme against Sir Desmond Swayne, a former Minister of State in the Department of International Development (DfID). There's a link to the programme at the bottom of this page but I thought I'd also... Read more...