Do please note that this is not your standard protest or demonstration and we're urging supporters not to bring leaflets or placards. We will have some petitions but what we're really asking is for people to gather as a show of support/force as the media come along to photograph and film this impressive vehicle. There will be Debt Clock t-shirts for those who come along to wear for the length of the event If you'd like more comprehensive information then please do visit our dedicated Debt Clock website
TPA Bulletin - 16th April 2010
Debt Clock Tour
Monday - London
Our Debt Clock hit the road this week. The tour started in London on Monday morning, and to get politicians to “wake up to the national debt” we began proceedings in Parliament Square. The Debt Clock made a huge visual impact – it was hard to miss a 7m long digital clock mounted on a 14m lorry! After driving around Westminster, the Clock headed to the Bank of England, which holds £21.669 billion in gold bullion and foreign currencies as the national reserve. The Government borrows that much money every seven weeks. Next it was on to Greenwich, and that landmark of profligacy – the O2 (now the Millennium Dome). We had significant media interest on our launch day, with reports in the Daily Mail and on the BBC’s election ticker, among many pictures in national, regional and specialist publications and websites:
Daily Mail's write up
Virgin News, Number 1 photo on “In Pictures” daily gallery
Orange News Number 1 photo
The BBC Election 2010 ticker reported:
0842: Away from party activity, one of our team has just spotted a giant "UK Debt Clock" truck - featuring an LCD screen ticking up an eye-watering sum - outside the Houses of Parliament. Its accompanying campaigners - from the Taxpayers' Alliance - frolicked nearby in Parliament Square.
A series of photographs featured in the Metro 1 2 3 4
Renowned political blogger Iain Dale featured the Debt Clock
Tuesday – South East
The Debt Clock then made its way up the M40 to Oxford. Again it made a big impression – Oxford is famous for its world class university, and at the end of 2008-09, students owed a total of £25.96 billion in debts to the Student Loan Company. That entire debt, built up over a number of years, is equivalent to just 8 weeks and 2 days of government borrowing. The Debt Clock went down well – a passer-by on the streets of Witney yelled at the truck: "You're the only ones telling the truth!" Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, was in attendance to talk to people in Oxford about the scale of the debt, and answer any questions journalists had. He also discussed the Debt Clock in this video (those of you with Youtube accounts are encouraged to rate this video!)
Heart radio station in Oxfordshire, featured a video of the truck and an audio interview with Matthew on their website as well as reporting it in news bulletins
Oxford Mail
And we made the front page of the Oxford Journal (with a large article on Page 3)
Wednesday – South West
Next stop was a windy Bristol. The truck pulled up at the Centre Promenade by Broad Quay in the heart of the city, and our Campaign Manager Emma Boon was on hand to talk to Bristolians about the debt and what can be done to scale it back. Crucially we need politicians to wake up and realise the scale and seriousness of the debt – and hopefully our Clock will help to achieve this. The Clifton Suspension Bridge cost £9.6m in today’s money to build. That means you could build a new Clifton Suspension Bridge using just 31 minutes of the Government’s new borrowing this year. Alternatively, if you used the whole national debt (£776.6 billion) you could afford to build a new version of the Clifton Suspension Bridge 33,490,874 km long. With these facts in mind, the local media in Bristol were certainly keen and the TPA made several broadcast appearances:
Audio interview, online write-up and video on Jack FM Bristol
Star FM Bristol
Jess Avis, Bristol Journalist
ITV West Country also came along.
Thursday – Wales
The Debt Clock then crossed the Severn Bridge to the Welsh capital. The Welsh Assembly receives a budget of £15.7 billion a year to cover the running of devolved government. The British Government borrows that amount every 35 days. To put it another way you could run 10 Welsh Assembly Governments with the money that Westminster is borrowing every year. To bring this to public attention, the Debt Clock rolled in to Roald Dahl Plass and swung by the Welsh National Opera (pictured). Campaign Manager Emma Boon made it across the Severn to talk to journalists in Wales, as well as the general public.
Wales Online (website of the Western Mail and South Wales Echo) featured us twice!
The Guardian (Welsh Edition)
The Sprout
Also good uptake on Twitter, with bloggers and passers-by commenting and uploading photos
Today – West Midlands
Last stop of this week was Birmingham, in Centenary Square. Birmingham's share (based on its population) of the debt this country is going to be facing by 2015 is in the order of £23.1 billion. The famous Bullring shopping centre rebuild cost an estimated £800 million; the British government adds to our national debt by borrowing that amount in just under two days. It’s this kind of alarming figure that hit home with the local residents, and will hopefully make politicians sit up and realise just how big the debt is. Jenny Dunn, Mark Wallace and Fiona McEvoy from the TPA were out in force talking to the public and media in Birmingham. Fiona was interviewed by Smooth Radio and Real Radio.
Online already is this article in the Shropshire Star
Next Week
On Monday 19th April, the Debt Clock will be in Manchester, before heading up to Edinburgh on Tuesday, where we will be stopping at the Scottish Parliament and the RBS headquarters for photos before stationing ourselves on Castle Street for the morning. On Wednesday, we will be on Newcastle’s Quayside, and then we’ll be at the Junction of Queen's Dock Avenue and Vernon Street in Hull on Thursday, conveniently by the BBC’s offices! Friday sees us in Peterborough, before our final stop on Monday 26th April in Norwich, where the Debt Clock will be at the Forum in Millennium Plain.
Activists are invited to come along to the stops in:
Hull
Norwich
Our Town Hall Rich List was released nearly 3 weeks ago now. In it, we showed that at least 1,250 staff got £100,000 or more in the 2008-09 financial year. You can search in the document for your own council, and see how they fared. To make it even easier to see data in most regions, a geographical 'heat-map' has been produced by Shoothill, and it went live on the MSN UK home page last week. (There's currently a breakdown for all districts and some counties.) It's innovative tools like these that will make it easier than ever to find local information and compare different authorities. Local constituents deserve to have the best possible information to hand so they can hold their council to account and visual maps like these will only help that process. You can see the map by clicking here.
Best of the Blogs:
European Union: Party Policy on Europe I - Labour
European Union: Party Policy on Europe II - UKIP
European Union: Party Policy on Europe III - Conservatives
European Union: Party Policy on Europe IV - Plaid Cymru
European Union: Party Policy on Europe V - Liberal Democrats
European Union: Party Policy on Europe VI – Greens
Better Government: The Complex Web of Business Support
Economics 101: More storm clouds for the public finances, and the parties don't have a credible plan to deal with the situation
Campaign: Non-job of the week
Burning Our Money: Millions Wasted on Cycle Route Plans
Campaign: The Army is not a Normal Employer
Burning our Money: Underperformance Pay
Friday, 16 April 2010
Newcastle
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