The TaxPayers' Alliance - Campaign

Campaign Diary 30th August 2007

Today has been a day of branch building, making calls to activists and sending letters to supporters.  If you’re on our list in Guildford, Godalming, St. Albans, Potters Bar and Hatfield, then expect a letter, email or call from me sometime soon attempting to enlist you to the frontline battle for lower taxes.  First we had our protest in Barnet against council tax.  Now we’re looking to have our TaxPayers’ Alliance branches fight a guerrilla war against the establishment that ratchets up our taxes year in and year out.  Even if you hand out a leaflet a day, write a letter to a local paper a week or recruit your friends and family to the TPA – it all makes a difference.

We currently have organisers in Guildford, North Tyneside, Liverpool, Islington, Tower Hamlets, New Romney, Thurrock, Harrogate, Kensington and Chelsea, Hatfield, St. Albans, Teignbridge, Derby, Carrick, Bishop’s Waltham and the Vale of Glamorgan.  If you live in these areas, then join in.  If you don’t, then what’s stopping you?  Form your own local branch to campaign – however and whenever you can – for lower taxes and better government. 

So to all those who have been away, welcome back from your summer holidays, no doubt enjoying the wonders of flat-tax Eastern Europe or Hong Kong, the delights in Ireland where they have no local ‘council’ tax or America where they fight to recall any politician who dare vote to increase taxes.  Now is the time to take the fight to the high taxing politicians here.  Find that Churchillian spirit.  Is this a land fit for heroes or bureaucrats?

Contact me on tim.aker@taxpayersalliance.com and join the winning team for lower taxes and better government.

Attacking Inheritance Tax on Friction TV

Via Friction TV

More from Barnet

We make a habit now of filming any of our TPA excursions to give our supporters a better sense of what we do during our grassroots activity. 

The first video shows us gathering outside the court house as more supporters arrive.  The horns of passing motorists were already honking their support!

Below, Austin Spiteri, the TPA activist who we were supporting in Barnet, and Tim Aker, the TPA's Grassroots Coordinator, reflect on the court appearance:

P.S. For those who want to see what the inside of a magistrate's court looks like on a Monday morning, take a look at this short bit of (...ahem, "illegal") filming - most of the people waiting to be called, were there on council tax issues.

Council Tax Protest in Barnet

A group of determined TPA activists set upon Barnet Magistrates Court to protest against the unfair council tax and to support TPA member Austin Spiteri in his battle with the council over council tax.

Mr Spiteri has been hounded by Barnet council over his daughter’s non-payment of council tax.  The simple fact is that Barnet council ‘mislaid’ the Spiteri’s application for council tax benefit and subsequently denied their application.  Had the benefit been permitted (especially when two of the three householders were unable to work and on incapacity benefit) then Mr. Spiteri wouldn’t have been in court and our money wouldn’t have been wasted on the paperwork and staff time needed to process Mr. Spiteri’s case.

With 12 people in attendance, growing over the hour and a half we were there, we handed out over a hundred leaflets, “tax cuts please” stickers and bumper stickers to Barnet residents.  Holding our handmade placards, we got an overwhelming reception from motorists honking in support, so much so that a very angry clerk stormed out of the court to give us a scowl only a bureaucrat could muster.

Such was our success that we recruited further members and activists who, like Mr. Spiteri, were at the court on matters relating to their own council tax payments.  Each example explained to us was yet another argument for the abolition of the council tax.

 

The final result was a fun protest for our activists to engage in (especially in the dreary weather) and Mr. Spiteri winning time to contact the council to ensure a final decision is made on his family’s council tax benefit.  Hopefully the council will get their act together and realise the circumstances the Spiteri’s face clearly merit benefit.

   

The Spiteri’s plight brings up so many issues we’re fighting in the TaxPayers’ Alliance and the reality that so many families face up and down the country:

1. The complexity of local government bureaucracy makes it dangerously easy for vulnerable families to fall into trouble. 
2. Council Tax needs to be significantly reduced, if not scrapped.  We’re not getting value for money and it’s making millions of people’s lives a misery because they simply cannot pay.  When councils are wasting money on jobs like this, this and this, no wonder we deserve a massive council tax cut.  End the waste and non-jobs and cut our taxes!
3. The tax system (and even perhaps the welfare state itself) needs urgent simplifying.  Moves to a flat tax – where tax returns could be done on the back of a postcard – or even Charles Murray’s plan to replace the Welfare State would all go to simplify one of the most complicated tax, benefit and welfare systems in the Western World.

Thanks to Austin Spiteri for bringing his cause to our notice and everyone, including Dick Bland, Bernard Toolan, Fabian Olins and so many others, who turned out to help us.

 

If you’ve seen the footage from Barnet today and want to protest, then get in touch and we can organise a protest in your area, putting you in touch with other TPA Activists and possibly forming a local branch.

 

The fight-back begins today, from Barnet to beyond!

At last! Action on inheritance tax...

In advance of tomorrow's publication by John Redwood of the Conservative Party's Economic Competitiveness Review, the Daily Mail has been leaked details which strongly suggest that the Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, will accept the recommendation to radically reform inheritance tax, by excluding the main home from the 40 per cent levy.

The death tax is one of Britain's most hated taxes, and led to a mass 300,000 name petition organised by the Daily Express in 2006 calling for its abolition.  Our own extensive polling last August found that it ranked only behind council tax as the most unpopular tax.  Just to reiterate the TPA stance on inheritance tax: we think it is immoral, unpopular, unfair and unnecessary - and should be abolished.

1. Immoral because the State should have no extra claim on your assets by virtue of the fact that you have the misfortune to die - something most of us don't plan.  A complex tax that was designed for the rich now hits ordinary people when they least expect it and when it does most to worsen their stress and bereavement.  Lord Lipsey wrote in the Guardian that IHT is only paid by the “the unwise or the unlucky” – how can such a tax be moral or defensible?

2. Unpopular because in poll after poll (including ones for the TPA), IHT ranks as one of the most hated taxes, right across the country (even areas like the North East where house prices haven't dragged as many people into the  death tax net).  People instinctively understand the immorality and unfairness of IHT on principle, whether or not they expect to pay it themselves.

3. Unfair because it represents double-taxation at least and more often than not triple-taxation - money that is earned is taxed once, and then taxed again when it is invested (stamp duty on a house purchase) and then taxed a third time on the proceeds of an estate at 40% through IHT when the owner dies. Raising the thresholds at which the tax is paid, or reducing the rate or both, would obviously help but only out-right abolition would address the unfairness issue.

4. Unnecessary because despite the harm it causes to thousands of families every year, IHT raises only £3.6 billion for the Treasury – less than 1% of total tax revenue.  Waste and unnecessary spending could easily be sourced to cover the cost of abolishing this tax (The European Central Bank estimates that more than £80 billion of unnecessary government spending goes on in the UK).  Also, countries around the world are abolishing death taxes - Australia doesn't have it (abolished in 1976!), Sarkozy in France is looking to scrap it, even social-democratic Sweden has abolished it.  It is an unnecessary relic of a c19th tax system that has no place in a modern economy.

For all of these reasons, the TaxPayers' Alliance favours nothing short of abolition and we do not believe it is necessary (and certainly as a low-tax campaign group not desirable) to have anything in its place.
Although the proposal is not a complete abolition of Inheritance Tax, by excluding the main home it will go a long way towards addressing the injustice of the death tax faced by millions of ordinary families across the country.

Hopefully David Cameron will listen to John Redwood and commit the Conservatives to this proposal and we congratulate the Economic Competitiveness Commission and Lord Forsyth’s Tax Reform Commission, which first came up with the policy.  That said, this announcement from John Redwood is very encouraging because it shows that the Conservatives are starting to understand that Britain's growing tax burden is hitting families as well as businesses.

It’s all about crime

There is usually an increase in coverage of crime and criminal justice matters during the Parliamentary recess when political news dries up in August and non-home affairs reporters take their holidays, and this year has been no different.  But even keen crime-watchers might have got a sense that there seems to be noticeably more “shock” cases around at the moment (unprovoked stabbings, people murdered on their own driveway in Kent at 8.20am, teenagers being shot in their own beds, etc.).  And with this in mind, it is no surprise that the popular assumption is that crime is too high, and violent crime in particular is getting worse.

This has been confirmed by a large opinion poll, commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and undertaken every five years.  The really important question asked respondents, without prompting, to name what issues they thought the Government should be dealing with.  The results, including responses from three earlier surveys starting in 1993 are as follows:

                  

At first glance, these results may not look that interesting.  As the DEFRA press release itself states, the top four issues (Crime, Health, Education, Environment) are the same as five years ago.  However, looking in more detail, there are a number of conclusions to draw from this poll. 

The first and most obvious is that crime is the most important issue in Britain today - period.  Not only is it mentioned by one in every two people as the biggest issue the Government should be dealing with, but it has massively increased over the last decade – up almost 20 points since 2001 (to 49 per cent), and more than doubling since 1996-97.  What is striking about this result is that its in direct opposition to the trend in crime rates as recorded by the British Crime Survey (the Government’s preferred measure). 

This divergence is now too great to be dismissed and most would suggest it is the authorities – not the public – who are underestimating this problem.  It is now simply academic (and the smug attitude of too many academics) to try and argue that public “fear of crime” does not relate to actual rates of crime in our society. The police and the Home Office clearly have a big problem when it comes to measuring crime accurately and public faith in the annual crime statistics has sunk very low.  People overwhelmingly think we have a serious crime problem in Britain today and that is all that matters.

Just on the politics of this reality, three thoughts come to mind.  Firstly, those politicians who think this issue is not relevant (because the crime figures are robust and the public have an irrational fear that cannot be assuaged) need to question their faith in the figures.  They should also ask themselves whether their personal experience of crime as a politician is truly representative – in the vast majority of cases, their lifestyle, where they live and their high income will suggest it isn’t.

Secondly, those politicians who think crime is an important issue but support the dated progressive policies espoused by the prison reform lobby and liberal criminologists that emphasis societal explanations and favour “long-term solutions” and “better education” need to ask themselves whether at this rate, as members of our already mistrusted political class, they have the luxury of time? If they want to tackle high crime by spending more money on education and welfare while cutting back on prison places and expanding community sentences, just how many more years of the highest crime rate in Europe do they think the taxpaying British public are willing to tolerate?  If this issue doesn’t deserve effective responses in the present to contain the problem with conventional (and proven) deterrent-based criminal justice responses, most effectively through tougher sentencing, then we can all expect the situation to get worse, and the next poll in 2012 to show an even bigger increase. And this is on the very generous assumption that all other things – especially the health of the economy – will be equal.

Thirdly, certain Conservative politicians and commentators who think “crime” is akin to tax and the EU – a core vote issue that turns people off – couldn’t be more wrong.  Treating it like a fringe issue by not mentioning it, or worse, allowing it to be over-intellectualised and therefore made to look like an interesting social problem for London dinner parties, rather than a daily nightmare for millions of people, will meet with a predictable response.  The figures in this poll should tell Conservatives all they need to know about why David Cameron’s “hug a hoodie” speech (as it was widely reported in the press – even if he didn’t use those actual words) was such a disaster.  When crime is so high in people’s list of priorities, these things cut through and people don’t forget them easily.

Other insights from this poll highlighted some other fascinating shifts in public opinion – and not in the direction you’d necessarily expect.

1. Despite local protests over NHS reorganisation and the closure of some district hospitals, this remains an issue of local controversy not a national political handicap.  After almost 15 years, for the first time the general view in the country has finally shown a fall in those saying that “health / social services” should be the Government’s top priority.  There has been a similar (though less marked) decline since 2001 in education. 

2. Those saying tax should be a top priority has increased every year since 1993, in line with the rising tax burden, and has tripled since 1993.  Unemployment has predictably fallen very significantly since 1993, and is no longer in the top five. In 1993, 46 per cent of people mentioned unemployment but only 9 per cent did so in 2007. This could be partly the result of unemployment becoming less visible.

3. Immigration has exploded as a political priority in the minds of voters.  Not statistically significant in 1993, 1996 or even 2001 (despite notable rows at the general election around breaches of asylum rules), it has now registered as one of the top six issues and is mentioned as a subject the Government should be dealing with by one in every five people.  This has occurred at the same time as mass immigration has accelerated, and particularly following EU enlargement.

4. Despite the current political obsession with climate change and the environment, and saturation coverage of green issues in the media at a level never seen before, the proportions of people mentioning the environment has actually fallen from 25 per cent since 2001.  This would seem to suggest that when compared alongside the “bread-and-butter” issues of health, education and crime, the limits of public concern about the environment is roughly no more than one quarter in these types of poll, and has already peaked.   The rest of the DEFRA poll is largely focused on the environment, with the survey showing that public attitudes to green issues right across the board are far from the metropolitan BBC mainstream.  The Guardian was one of the only papers to report the poll incidentally, and has a fairly accurate write-up of the main environmental questions.

5. On other results, pensions remain an important issue (though down from 2001), and housing has risen in people’s sense of priorities.  The European Union has declined at every poll since 1996, despite the country as a whole becoming progressively more eurosceptic. Europe is now a minority concern.   

Hypocrisy at the BBC

                     

  BBC News Magazine, June 2007 - what they really think...

There is an internal spat going on at our beloved British Broadcasting Corporation over advertising.  A smug bunch of deputy-assistant tv producers, sound engineers, production assistants and the odd artistic director have teamed up to start a “No Ads Campaign” in opposition to moves by the BBC Board to allow their international services to run adverts for the first time.

We can safely ignore the arguments of the anti-capitalist campaigners whose own ideological hang-ups and vested interest mean they would never countenance any funding for the Corporation other than the compulsory licence fee.  But the most interesting angle comes from the management themselves. 

In the June edition of the BBC’s in-house magazine (very glossy and judging by the piles on display, of barely any interest to the staff), Sian Kevill, BBC World’s Editorial Director, has a full page to answer the campaigners and put forward the view that publishing ads would be a good thing.  What follows, is an attempt to assuage the concerns of the campaigners (“There will be commercial pressures on editorial content” / “Why change the current system when it works so well” / “A commercially funded model will erode the BBC brand” etc.).  However, in doing so, Ms Kevill essentially makes all the necessary arguments for allowing advertising within domestic BBC services and therefore, by implication, argues against the licence fee.

The debate surrounds whether certain international BBC services – especially BBC.com and BBC World television – which are watched by a non-UK audience who do not pay a licence fee should be allowed to run adverts to generate revenue for investment.  There are currently proposals to go this way and the management are attempting to head off accusations of “thin-end-of-the-wedge”.  But Ms Kevill makes a number of striking statements that highlight the hypocrisy of the BBC's attitude to its funding and audience:

1. Advertising won’t influence content

“BBC Worldwide will have no editorial input into bbc.co.uk so in essence, BBC.com is public service journalism, distributed in a commercial way.”

If this is achievable for BBC.com, a simple editorial division would prevent commercial pressures influencing UK content in a setup that was funded by advertising – like all other national news agencies – and not the BBC licence fee, which has all the essential characteristics of a poll tax.

2. The BBC already takes ads, so a few more won’t hurt

“In the UK, BBC Worldwide is the third largest magazine publisher, has a 50% stake in the 10 UKTV channels [on Sky and Freeview] and has a global entertainment channel on YouTube; all these services carry ads.  Internationally, through BBC World, ads are already sold around BBC news content on the TV channel, the recently-launched news channel on YouTube, through Yahoo, Real Networks and ABCNewsNow in the US and the soon-to-be launched news AV player.”

In other words, we have already conceded the principle (if it ever was that), so this is no great departure and nothing to be worried about.  A more diversified BBC family - as the new media and the internet make inevitable - means that new innovation will always go alongside advertising, and in addition, becomes dependent on it as advertising becomes more lucrative and big companies see these new channels as a more bespoke means of reaching their target audience.  The BBC shouldn't be left behind, so long as we don't see it as a alternative future for funding the BBC in the UK (even if this new media is viewable in Britain already)

3. Our services that carry ads are vital

“All these services are vital if the BBC is to reach new audiences, while generating revenues which can be invested in BBC content.”

In other words, international BBC services have been competing with other broadcasters and news agencies in developing markets by running adverts already.  This is crucial to keeping the BBC at the forefront and ensures that new audiences can be reached.  The adverts also provide extra investment to invest back into quality programming that would suffer if we just had to rely on a gradually eroding share of a central subsidy.  So far from turning people off, the BBC management now admit that it helps attract new audiences.  If that applies in Africa, then it should apply in the UK as well.

4. No evidence from our expensive opinion research that adverts turn people off

“Internationally, the BBC undertook detailed quantitative research among more than 4,000 international, current users of the news pages….  This research has shown there are significant revenues to be gained with little or no impact on the brand in the countries we are targeting.  The majority of respondents were neutral of would not change their behaviour in response to the introduction of advertising.”

And just to reiterate the point, Ms Kevill describes the lengths they have gone to consult the world’s viewing masses about what they think about adverts on the BBC.  God knows how much that cost.  Perhaps they could repeat the exercise in the UK, unless they thought they wouldn’t get a supportive response (“I love the opportunity to pop out during a period drama to make a cupper and if it saves me £120 a year then hell yes – give me adverts!”).  If this is an argument in favour of adverts that doesn’t apply in Britain, it must only be because the BBC management think that the brand is so universally respected that any advertising would erode it in the eyes of the British public and so couldn’t be allowed (unlike premeditated attempts to misrepresent our Head of State in a documentary and dodgy habits of conning 8-year-olds on Blue Peter phone-ins…).  The BBC is no longer the revered institution it once was – here or overseas - and their own polling shows that people don’t care if they run adverts, so drop the pretence that this doesn’t apply in the UK.

5. We can’t ask BBC licence fee payers to fund services they don’t receive

“[U]sing UK licence fee payers’ money to fund international traffic is not acceptable.”

We couldn’t agree more.  For the same reasons using a poll tax to collect a guaranteed source of revenue from every television viewer whether they watch the BBC or not is just as unfair and it shouldn’t matter where they live.  If I don’t choose to watch the BBC, it is not acceptable that I am forced to pay for it – whether I’m watching tv in Cairo or Corby.  The licence fee is essentially a subsidy from people who don’t watch the BBC in Britain, to people who do watch it (in Britain or elsewhere).  Bring on the advertising (and subscriptions), and then we can all only pay for the services we use (as millions do already on top of the licence fee by paying for Sky or cable).  Presumably, the anti-ad campaigners in the BBC would prefer an international BBC licence fee, levied on all tv viewers in the whole world, so no advertising would ever be necessary (because all advertising is evil - according to the sociology textbook they read in 1977).  Or perhaps this would be too much of a burden on the poor in the Third World and so they'd like universal penetration with the BBC in every Chinese apartment, African shanty town and Brazilian slum, so long as the licence fee increased every year in the UK to pay for it.  £250 a year anyone?

6. We can run ads on our international services because UK taxpayers won’t see them

“BBC.com will use robust Geo-IP technology to show advertising to selected international traffic.  The technology has been externally audited and has a 99.96% accuracy rate.  In addition, for the remaining 0.04%, with ambiguous IP addresses, there would be systems in place to alert BBC Worldwide in order to rectify this situation.”

That’s right.  Us poor licence fee-paying trolls on our small island cannot be subjected to advertising on the BBC under any circumstances, and the management can give firm assurances that expensive technology and safeguards will be in place to guarantee this disgrace will never occur, or if it does, we will have devices (alarm bells, sirens?) to “alert” us. 

All this means that the BBC management is pursuing – under force of financial necessity and market reality – a commercial funding model for the BBC, but only outside of this country, while actively seeking support for this by guaranteeing to its own staff and other vested interests that no such benefits will be applied to the millions of UK licence fee payers, less that raise questions over the funding settlement guaranteed by their annual £3 billion subsidy.  And furthermore, we will invest in cutting-edge internet safeguards to keep it this way - a BBC v-chip by any other name. 

So there we have it.  We have to remain stuck in a country with a 1950s-sytle national broadcaster and a collectivist funding model because without it the whole cosy monopoly of the BBC would be exposed, but if you’re watching the BBC news from a hotel room in Cape Town, then the BBC treats you as a intelligent consumer who can handle a few adverts for Lynx aftershave.  Adverts abroad are not just an inevitable development – they are a good thing that the BBC should embrace.  Adverts on BBC content in Britain – now that would be a shameful catastrophe.

In one sense of course, they are right.  It would be a catastrophe – for them.  Adverts on the BBC would fatally undermine the case of the licence fee and the privileged position that the BBC holds.  If you were Ms Kevill or any of the other BBC directors on six-figure salaries, what would you say?  Faced with an internal rebellion of hard-core BBC campaigners it is no surprise that the BBC has once again fudged the issue.  Arguing for its own interest and shamelessly applying one rule for British taxpayers who fund them, and another for everyone else.  If this is what they really believe, perhaps they should all come clean and make this argument in public, rather than burying it on p.23 of an internal staff magazine.  That would at least treat us - the British taxpayers - as the valued audience they keep saying we are.

It's Rochdale...but not as we know it

If anyone needs convincing that Regional Development Agencies are a waste of time, space and money, one should look at the Rochdale Development Agency.  The Times reports this morning that the Rochdale Development Agency has been advertising Rochdale by using pictures of Manchester.

Yes.  They advertised Rochdale by showing pictures of a completely different area fifteen miles away.  Why?  The development agency said it was to “reflect the aspirations of Rochdale’s citizens”. 

It’s a fraud, a complete fraud to show pictures of one area and advertise it as another.  It’s not an aspiration to show Manchester as Rochdale - it’s a lie to the people.  But faced with these blatant facts Paul Rowen, the Rochdale MP and as leader of Rochdale council commissioned the false advertisements, said the development agency would “not apologise”.

Don’t be surprised.  Since when have we expected a local government apparatchik-and-newly-made-MP to apologise for a blatant waste of taxpayers’ money?  The fact is they won’t, even when faced with something so clearly wasteful because their careers have been advanced through these white elephants and is dependent on them.

These people need to be woken up.  From behind their taxpayer funded desks in town halls far from the concerns of ordinary people, they won’t hear us until we shout loud and clear that we’ve had enough.  So get active.  Write to the Rochdale Development Agency and their local papers expressing outrage at how they can lie with our money:

The address for the Chairman of the Rochdale Development Agency is:
P Ewbank
Chairman, Rochdale Development Agency
Partnership House
Sparrow Hill
Rochdale
OL16 1QT

Email:  info@investinrochdale.co.uk (in your subject area stress it is for the attention of P Ewbank)

The address of the Rochdale local paper is:
Letters Editor
The Rochdale Observer
Observer Buildings,
Drake Street,
Rochdale,
OL16 1PH,
United Kingdom

Email: rochdaleobserver@gmwn.co.uk (put in your subject area that this is a letter for the Rochdale Observer and Rochdale Express)

Write in and give the bureaucrats what for!

Council fights fashion not crime

Are Peterborough City Council taking the p***?

Forklift driver David Pratt is under investigation by Peterborough City Council for wearing as an ‘offensive’ T-shirt.  He faces a £80 fine if he is caught wearing the T-shirt again.

How much taxpayer’s money is this petty persecution of free expression costing us?  Think about it.  First you have to employ powerless ‘street wardens’ to look out for these ‘crimes’ (because they don’t have the power to combat serious crime).  Then there’s the bureaucrats dealing with the ‘complaint’.  Then factor in the costs of the paperwork to issue the fine and this is all done for a mere £80 fine at the end of it.

Although this is a story to make your eyes roll in disbelief, the fact is that Peterborough City Council thinks it can regulate what we wear as it takes money from frontline services to persecute people for their fashion sense.  Do you think councils should spend our money fighting crime or fashion?

It seems now that we’re being ever more micro-managed by a state that thinks it has the right to nanny us like this.  From dictatorial central government right through to local government apparatchiks, they all need to be told to back off – taxpayers have had enough!!!

I will be writing to the Peterborough Evening Telegraph and Peterborough Today expressing outrage at Peterborough Council’s obscure priorities.  You should too! 

Their address is:
Letters Editor
Peterborough Evening Telegraph and/or Peterborough Today
57 Priestgate,
Peterborough,
PE1 1JW,
United Kingdom

Or email: gaenor.keating@peterboroughtoday.co.uk (this is the contact address given by the Peterborough Evening Telegraph for their letters page)

How long will it take to send off an email expressing how you, the British taxpayer, are fed up with the culture of waste and incompetence in local government?  With a loud enough voice we can put across the message for change. 

Council sponsors football team and not services

Our Dagenham and Rainham TPA organiser has sent us information about Dagenham council’s reckless use of public money.

The council is using £90,000 of taxpayers’ money to sponsor their local football team, Dagenham and Rainham FC.  This happens while the council uses its propaganda sheets, such as New Spotlight, to whine about underinvestment in housing and other public services.

One Party States like Dagenham routinely waste taxpayers’ money.  This is nothing new.  The ways in which councils waste taxpayers’ money, however, are becoming more and more bizarre.  If it’s not waste on non-jobs, such as this week’s Urdu and Punjabi-only Welfare Rights Officer, then it’s your money squandered on unnecessary sponsorship of football teams – something other teams are able to get from private industry.

So if you’re reading this in Dagenham or Barking – or anywhere in the UK - and can’t believe that your council tax went up last year to pay for sponsorship and not services, then join the TaxPayers’ Alliance and get active.  Write to the Barking and Dagenham Post and let them know that taxpayers’ money should be put to services and not sponsorship.  You contact them at:

Letters Editor
The Barking and Dagenham Post
10 Whalebone Lane South
Dagenham
RM8 1BJ

Or email: postletters@archant.co.uk

Please note that letters have to be received by 12PM every Monday for publication in that week’s paper.

If any activists out there find any waste or inefficiency in your local council, then do let us know so we can publicise it and rally TPA activists to write to these councils and local papers exposing and shaming the ongoing waste of our money!

Real Business In Brown's Britain - send in your experiences

                           

The excellent Jeff Randall is asking readers who run companies with fewer than 100 staff to write in for a new Telegraph series – Real Business in Brown’s Britain:

“The aim is to cut through official hype and discover what it's like trying to make a living as an entrepreneur after 10 years of Labour in power. In addition to visiting five small companies - one each in Aberdeen, Southampton, Newmarket, Newport and Birmingham - I will be sifting through your views on issues such as start-up incentives, tax, health and safety rules, European directives, employment law, skills and recruitment...

This is an opportunity for you not just to right some wrongs, but also to provide positive feedback. If you think the Government or any of its business agencies are doing a good job, then let me know. The series begins on September 19, so there's still plenty of time to send in your accounts of enterprise in action." - Telegraph

The TaxPayers' Alliance has long campaigned on behalf of small businesses and the self-employed - window cleaners, printers, shop owners, electricians and many more - who are increasingly frustrated at the complexity of our tax system, the harm done by VAT and other taxes on profits which prevent growth and new investment, and the ever-rising tide of regulation.  And this was all before Brown announced that the small business rate would be rising three points from next year. The TPA has heard from people who have been ruthlessly pursued by HM Revenue & Customs for the smallest of errors, and others who have struggled to keep their small businesses afloat in the face of rising business rates and payroll taxes. 

Too often, when reported in the business pages of newspapers the economics of the issue fails to convey what impact high taxes and regulation has on real people and their livelihoods (even that word is used less and less these days).  The same is true with stories about local government finance, which increasingly focuses on policy and the pointless consultations of local technocrats, and ignores the plight of council taxpayers who pay for it all.  Especially the many pensioners on low and fixed-incomes who frankly don't have very nice lives and who feel angry, abandoned and completely ripped-off every month when they pay their council tax.

This is therefore a great opportunity to get some human stories into the national press describing what it is really like for people wanting to start or run companies today. So if you run a small business and are fed up with being told by Ministers in the media that “Britain is booming” and entrepreneurs are thriving, then drop Jeff Randall at the Telegraph a message telling him about your situation: realbusiness@telegraph.co.uk

Council offers 'ladder climbing training'

Lancashire county council has stunned its roadside workforce by insisting that all staff that climbs a 4-foot ladder to put up road signs must have ‘ladder training’.  Added to this the council are inviting the fire and rescue services to take time off from their essential duties to instruct people how to climb a ladder.

What possesses these council hacks to invent these bizarre schemes?  I’m coming round to the opinion that these pointless bureaucrats filling up local government ‘environment directorates’ create these problems only to justify their existence. 

Councillors who believe in value for money and TPA Activists up and down the country should go through their council staff roster and hold these bureaucrats to account.  These daft examples may rouse chuckles or groans, but ‘ladder training’ and the idiots who enforce it on essential council staff are taking thousands of taxpayers’ money a year, always being diverted from vital public services.   

Council Tax Activist wins crucial vote at USDAW conference

Derrick Frost, a newly registered TaxPayers’ Alliance activist from West Sussex and member of USDAW (the Union of shop, distributive and allied workers), has told us how he recently won a crucial vote at the USDAW conference binding the Union to campaign against council tax.

With a massive vote of some 141,488 delegates in support, Mr. Frost’s proposition for the Union to campaign for reforming council tax was overwhelmingly carried at the USDAW annual conference.

Speaking with Mr. Frost today he said that there was “great support” in the country for council tax reform and against council tax waste. 

The fact is that we can easily abolish the council tax and lower taxes without jeopardising front line services.  A 2003 study by the European Central Bank found that the government wastes £83 billion a year through waste and inefficiency – showing us what scope there is to cut taxes by eliminating wasteful government spending.

In building a greater alliance of taxpayers, from TPA activists to members in USDAW, Isitfair and other campaign groups, the momentum is clearly with the forces who want to eliminate the hated council tax and replace it with a lower, fairer tax.

Campaign News

West Midlands TPA Launch

The West Midlands TaxPayers’ Alliance officially opened for business after a launch event outside the uncompleted 'The Public' art gallery in West Bromwich on Tuesday morning. The day went to plan, with our eye-catching 55ft poster truck stealing the show and providing a great backdrop for the protest. The press gathered to take photographs of the demonstration, 'The Public' and the truck before we headed into town to distribute our launch leaflets and collect signatures for our petition that calls for a halt to spending anymore on this outrageous venture.

The launch was covered on the front page of the Evening Mail, with large articles in the Express & Star (the UK's largest circulation regional newspaper), the Coventry Telegraph and the Birmingham Post (along with the picture on the left).  There was also follow-on coverage in yesterday and today's Express & Star.

We have to build on this successful launch now to grow our membership, which in turn will give us even more exposure and legitimacy in the region.  The Petition is now available to download on our website to print off and circulate and you can also sign the petition via the Downing Street Website. We hope to present the petition to Sandwell Council in November, if not before as a way of keeping this issue on the local media agenda. 

Please don’t forget to take a look at our new website: www.taxpayersalliance.com/westmidlands where you will be able to view more information about the campaign in the region, read our latest blog (reflecting on the launch day) and post any comments.  Current content includes:

• West Midlands Launch Flyer (request hard copies or download)
• WMTPA Council List - the full council list of prominent figures supporting WMTPA
• West Midlands Waste Dossier - a short survey of the sort of waste we'll be going after in the months ahead (referenced in the Post article)
• The Press Release from the launch (including our 2min launch video filmed on location in Birmingham - more of these to come in the months ahead)

2012 Watchdog

Last week, to coincide with the five year countdown to the opening ceremony of 2012 Olympics, the TPA has announced the formation of a ‘2012 Watchdog’ – a panel to scrutinise the progress of the London Olympic Games between now and the opening ceremony on Friday 27 July 2012.  The TPA’s Campaign Director writes in today’s Yorkshire Post about the Olympics and what the new 2012 Watchdog will be doing – click here.  Fronted by two former Olympians - Michael Liebreich and Alex Story - we have 4 main aims:

• Represent taxpayers – a non-party voice to put the concerns of all taxpayers about the costs of 2012 on the political agenda
• Hold politicians accountable – monitor committees, the media and Parliament to enforce openness and transparency about the project
• Scrutinise costs – close scrutiny of official statements and formal project costs
• Monitor project management – assessment of all London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games (LOCOG) and Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) project management developments.

Our campaigning and research agenda for the 2012 Watchdog will focus on budget costs, to hold politicians and officials accountable for any further cost over-runs.  We’ll also be commissioning a study of the true costs of 2012 and what the final budget is likely to be.  Next week, we’ll be releasing research we have conducted assessing the cost-inflation linked to the Olympics, particularly in the London and South East construction industry and property market.  We’re also going to be making transparency an issue – advocating greater openness over contracts and commissions and to demand regular updates from the Government and its agencies on the progress of the project.  And, as ever, we’ll be keeping a keen eye on any examples of Olympic waste.

If you would like to know more about our 2012 Watchdog, or have information or expertise that is relevant to our work in scrutinising the Olympics, please email olympics@taxpayersalliance.com.  Follow progress at our new Olympics blog, www.taxpayersalliance.com/2012

New supporter material

We have had such a flurry of new activists in the last month or so that we have almost completely run out of campaign material.  That said, we are on the case to order new stock and after numerous requests, we have also produced new TPA window stickers to help us all show support for the low-tax cause.  We have 4 different designs, each one perfect for displaying in a car window or porch (or giving to a sympathetic taxi driver to put in their cab).  To request a pack of 4 window stickers, please send a self-addressed envelope and a donation of £1 (or more if you like) to our London office (address is here).

We are also close to ordering new "Wish You Were Here" supporter postcards - by far our most popular design.  These new ones will have the added benefit of a freepost return service, so no stamps will be needed.  By October, we will also be producing a new national TPA leaflet which will serve as our main piece of printed material for supporters, and will include an integrated envelope and reply slip - once again, all freepost to maximise returns.

New Research

Olympic Costs Could Rise to £12.6 billion

To coincide with the launch announcement of the 2012 Watchdog, we produced a new research note drawing together the main figures so far on the cost of the 2012 Games, including some parallels with the Athens Olympics of 2004 at the same stage that raise concerns that the final bill for 2012 could yet rise still further.  As we all know, London 2012 is already almost four times over budget.  Taxpayers are hoping that the final cost will not exceed the revised budget of £9.35 billion.  There are, however, a number of worrying indications that the final Olympics bill could rise to as high as £12.6 billion, especially since most of the Athens overruns occurred in the four years preceding the Games when construction got underway.  To read the research note click here (PDF).

Green tokenism - Government Cars

The TaxPayers’ Alliance investigated the Government’s purchasing of hybrid cars.  We found that the government could have bought equivalent, non-hybrid, cars for the Government Car and Despatch Service’s fleet and saved the taxpayer £888,000.  With massive growth in emissions in countries like China and India there is a strong argument that the £888,000 has simply been wasted.  However, if the Government really wants to spend that money cutting emissions it could have got far better results by planting trees.  74,028 trees could be planted, in the UK, for that money.  Instead, politicians chose the trendy Hollywood option and bought expensive, hi-tech new cars.  Read the note here (PDF). (Other examples of green tokenism will be exposed in the months ahead).

Web Update

We've had lots of positive feedback and traffic is building daily on our new website, helped by links from friendly sites and lots more regular content, especially on our five themed blogs.  Recent highlights include:

• Burning Our Money: Non-job of the week – Today's is the Natural Environment and Green Infrastructure Manager at Buckinghamshire Council...
• Economics 101: Is Harry Potter creating a generation of low-tax activists?
• Better Government: Public service reform ‘to stall’ under Brown – what public service reform?
• Burning Our Money: NHS pay – a triumph of simple shopping
• Campaign: We’re all going to get sent to Climate Camp…
• Economics 101: The folly of ‘food miles’
• Burning Our Money: The limits of taxation
• Better Government: Spinning Crime – how the crime figures mask the real truth about a 45% increase in serious crime in the last decade…
• Burning Our Money: Weekly Waste Round-Up 69 – total, £65,006,858,000...
• Campaign: The Causes of Political Disengagement

Please feel free to send suggestions of anything you'd like to see integrated into the new website in future (website@taxpayersalliance.com). In addition, if you write your own blog on related TPA issues, why not apply to join our "Low Tax Coalition" of bloggers, and help each other attract sympathetic readers? (email matthew.sinclair@taxpayersalliance.com).