Friday, 9 April 2010


TPA Bulletin - 9th April 2010


The TPA – winning awards
The TaxPayers’ Alliance scored a major victory this week – we were voted the ‘favourite think-tank’ of readers of the ConservativeHome website. We beat off strong challengers such as Policy Exchange and Reform, among many others. The TPA topped almost every category:

- The most effective overall think-tank in influencing the national debate
- The most effective think-tank at nurturing new talent
- The think-tank carrying out the most interesting economic analysis (we scored 40 per cent in this and second place scored 9 percent)
- Think-tank that would be toughest on any Conservative government (we scored 48 per cent in this and second place scored 7 per cent)

This is a great tribute to the TPA’s research, campaign and – last but far from least – strong grassroots support. We’re naturally really pleased that the campaign’s message is obviously spreading, and a massive thank you also goes out to every single one of our supporters – without you we would be unable to do the work that we do. Awards like these aren’t just for show, they encourage more people to get on board the campaign and they also send a clear message to politicians that we can’t be ignored. Of course we don’t intend to rest on our laurels – we’ll be fighting hard over the next few weeks and then moving swiftly to hold the Government to account after the election, whoever is in power.

New book from Heather Brooke
We all remember the MPs’ expenses scandal from last summer – who could forget it? One of the key figures in helping to unearth the greed and corruption in Parliament was a journalist called Heather Brooke. She fought tirelessly for years on this issue, and has worked closely with the TPA on Freedom of Information for quite some time. This month she has a new book out that exposes the shocking lack of transparency at all levels of government: The Silent State: Secrets, Surveillance and the Myth of British Democracy. She argues that without proper access to the information that citizens pay for, Britain can never be a true democracy. You can find out more about it here.

The Election gets going and the Debt Clock gears up

Of course, there’s no getting away from the fact that the General Election has now been called. On Tuesday the prime minister asked for the Queen’s permission to dissolve Parliament, and politicians from all parties have hit the campaign trail hard. One issue that looms in the background – always there but seldom discussed – is the size of the debt. As you will have heard, we are launching a major campaign next week to make politicians “wake up to the national debt”. Our Debt Clock – which we believe to be the biggest digital display clock in the world – is going on a 1,300 mile tour around Britain, starting in London on Monday. As you can see from the picture to the right, construction is nearing completion, and it is set to be a truly huge clock! For details of the campaign, to see if the clock is passing near where you are and to get involved, please visit the Debt Clock website at www.debt-clock.org.

The Election struggle more generally has started off straight away on the issue of tax and spending. But all we’ve heard this week is the need for “tough choices” and making “efficiency savings” – the detail is still sorely lacking. They could do worse than to take a look at our new book, How to cut public spending (and still win an election). We show that it’s possible to pick programmes and organisations that are not working or that the state should not be running, meaning we can save billions of pounds and start to plug the gaps in our public finances.
In fact, the Lib Dems did seem to pick up on a point from the book this week. In it, Matt Sinclair expressed his concern that a potential Conservative Government would raise VAT, and the Lib Dems have produced posters warning of a VAT “bombshell”. Indeed, this tax would increase benefit dependency and hit the poorest hardest. Politicians of all stripes need to realise that spending cuts are the best way to get out of this financial crisis; and it can mean lower taxes in the future too.

As if it wasn’t obvious enough, the need to cut spending became all the more apparent this week. The Bank for International Settlements has looked at the picture in the longer term and the projections in its new report suggest Britain faces the worst long term fiscal position of any of the countries it has looked at. Our Research Director, Matt Sinclair, delves into the grim details here.

Best of the blogs

Burning our Money: Election promises
Economics 101: United they strike

Posted by Britannia Radio at 23:35