Today David Chaytor, who pleaded guilty to stealing just over £20,000 in false expenses claims, was sentenced to 18 months in jail. We have been campaigning for greater transparency over MPs' expenses since the TPA was founded, and have been attacking fraudulent or excessive claims since the scandal first broke. In response to today's announcement, TPA Director Matthew Sinclair said: "While it has been a long time coming, it is good to see that at least one MP is finally facing justice for stealing taxpayers' money. It was an outrage that they were able to rip off taxpayers on such a scale, and other MPs also need to be punished for what went on, but now that the public can see that politicians are not above the law we can start to move on from this crisis. We now need a completely transparent expenses system and proper controls to ensure that this kind of crime against the public that MPs are supposed to serve never happens again." Thank you for all your support for our campaign on this issue. We aren't done yet, though. There will be more trials. We need to keep up the pressure for justice to be done. And the new system for MPs' expenses is still being put together. This week IPSA launched a consultation into how the system has been functioning. Improvements can be made, but the taxpayers' interests need to remain the primary concern. Unfortunately, MPs still have a huge sense of entitlement and resent the taxpayers who pay the bill having a say over what they should be able to claim. Matthew Sinclair had a furious debate on BBC Radio 5 Live on Wednesday with two MPs on that issue, you can listen to it here. This week VAT went up from 17.5 per cent to 20 per cent. Tim Montgomerie, Editor of ConservativeHome, wrote that: "Four of London's leading think tanks have all attacked today's increase in VAT to; an increase that George Osborne intends to be a permanent rather than emergency fixture. Leading the charge has been Matthew Sinclair of the TaxPapers' Alliance. Speaking to the BBC earlier he pointed out that David Cameron had broken a promise not to raise VAT." Click here to read the full article. That will cost ordinary families hundreds of pounds a year. After a decade in which tax rates went up, not down, the answer to the fiscal crisis is cuts in spending not tax hikes. At the TPA we have been campaigning against the hike for some time. We raised the possibility of it in A taxpayers' guide to the party political responses to the fiscal crisis and our book How to Cut Public Spending (and Still Win an Election). When the measure was first announced we attacked it being pushed through despite neither coalition party having a mandate to raise VAT as shown in this video. At the end of last year, we also looked at how the measure would increase the burden on taxpayers in our report on the Christmas Tax. This week, Rory Meakin wrote a blog about the VAT hike for our website. Motorists will be hit particularly hard by the VAT hike, they will pay more VAT on both the fuel and the Fuel Duty. Earlier today, Matthew Sinclair appeared on the BBC News Channel arguing that Fuel Duty should be cut as motorists are overtaxed, citing TPA research showing that motorists pay £18.4 billion more than the combined total cost of road transport greenhouse gas emissions and road spending. On January 24th, we are holding a training session for our grassroots coordinators, and for anyone who is interested in getting actively involved in campaigning in their local areas. It will start at 1.00 pm at our office in Tufton Street. There will be presentations from many of the team on how to send Freedom of Information requests, dealing with journalists, and tips on how to grow a successful branch from those who have done it. If you would like to attend, please e-mail the National Grassroots Coordinator, Andrew Allison, andrew.allison@taxpayersalliance.com,and he will send you more information. Following on from our report late last year on council road salt spending, which is still getting new local coverage, we are responding to how councils are dealing with the severe weather. This week TPA Research Director John O'Connell challenged a council who had failed to get the rubbish cleared up on BBC Radio Devon, you can listen to the interview here. He forced the previously unrepentant Exeter council leader Pete Edwards to apologise to his residents. Over the Christmas break, we launched a new report on financial regulation, a joint paper with the Legatum Institute by their Research Fellow Dalibor Rohac and Matthew Sinclair, who summarised the paper saying: "Taxpayers can't afford the economic fallout from new financial crises, but politicians are responding in ways that could increase risk. The crisis was the result not of too little regulation of the financial sector but the wrong regulations. Policy mistakes and regulatory failure led to a devastating collapse of a kind not seen in Britain for over a century. Unfortunately there is a serious risk that politicians trying to build ever more closely harmonised global regulations will create nastier and more frequent global crises. That approach needs to be reconsidered, we can't let the response to this crisis produce the next one." You can see the press release and download the report here. It received coverage in the Times, the Telegraph and other newspapers and the authors wrote a comment article for the Wall Street Journal Europe, which you can read here. Just before Christmas, our book Ten Years On was held up by Kate Hoey MP in Parliament, who said: "There is one little book that every Member in this House should buy. If the Foreign Secretary, the shadow Foreign Secretary and the shadow Ministers have not read it, I will give them a copy. It is called "Ten Years On: Britain Without The European Union". I wish it had said "the United Kingdom", rather than "Britain", as that would have left out Northern Ireland. This brilliant book actually says, "If we were to leave the European Union, this is what this country would look like 10 years on." Let us have the confidence to say to the people that it is time that we have that real debate. Let those people who are confident that the European Union is the right thing for this country put it to the people and give them the say." Better Government: TPA welcome Clegg's proposals to strengthen Freedom of Information requests- Great news that taxpayers to get information on how their money is spent, and how their public services are run Grassroots: Non- job of the week - Andrew Allison on advertising non-jobs and more money than the Prime Minister Economis 101: George Monbiot doesn't have a magic wand to sove the housing crisis - Matthew Sinclair on the shortage of housing.
TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 7th January 2011
MPs expenses
VAT hike
Grassroots action
Council finally apologises for uncollected rubbish
Financial regulation
Ten Years On in Parliment
Best of the Blogs
Friday, 7 January 2011
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