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TaxPayers' Alliance Bulletin - 14 October 2011 - New Research: Wasting Lives - The two faces of conference - Influencing policy makers - Grassroots - Best of the Blogs New Research: Wasting Lives On Thursday we released a major new report comparing NHS performance with similar European countries. Despite massive increases in spending here, the statistics suggest that we aren't catching up our foreign counterparts any faster than before, and that many deaths that could be averted with timely and effective healthcare. The report, based on detailed World Health Organisation data, found that nearly 12,000 fewer people would die each year if the NHS matched standards in Europe. The findings in the report should be a wake-up call for politicians, who need to change the NHS to ensure we get better value for the tens of billions spent each year. CALL TO ACTION: Help us spread this message and please share our new video via email or on Facebook and Twitter if you use them. We need your help to ensure that as many people as possible see this message so please copy the link and send it to ten of your friends now! You can find your MP’s email address here if you think they should watch it too. The report was covered in the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, the Daily Telegraph and the Sun; on the radio; and online with articles by Matthew Elliott for the Daily Mail, Matthew Sinclair for ConservativeHome and Daniel Hannan MEP for the Telegraph. The two faces of conference Many commentators have criticised how party conferences, and this year’s Conservative party conference in particular, have become corporate affairs divorced from the issues that matter to voters. We held a number of panel discussions debating the issues that really matter to taxpayers in theFreedom Zone. If you missed out on attending you can now watch the main speeches from the 'We Need to Talk About Europe' debate that we hosted jointly with the Daily Express. It was one of the best attended events of the entire conference season, and contributions from Patrick O’Flynn, Tim Montgomerie andDouglas Carswell MP are now all online. During our time at the various conferences we also busted yet more cases of taxpayers' money being wasted. We discovered numerous examples of public bodies spending taxpayers’ money to lobby political parties and politicians. The Royal Mail isn’t so short of money that they can’t afford to enjoy the delights of conference season (pictured), while Visit Yorkshire and DigitalUK, among others, were keen for party delegates to stop by their stands. You can read the full story in Emma's blog. Influencing policy makers Part of the reason the TaxPayers’ Alliance was founded was to represent taxpayers in the corridors of power. In recent weeks there have been a number of policy announcements that have been heavily influenced by our research and the hard work of our grassroots supporters, such as a move to stop taxpayer funding for trade union activists. At Prime Minister's Questions one of our most successful reports, the Trade Union Rich List, was raised by Henry Smith MP. Here is the full text of the question, and you can watch his question and the PM's response in this video. Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con): A recent TaxPayers' Alliance report revealed—[Hon. Members: “Ahh!”]—that 38 union leaders were remunerated at more than £100,000 each, including Derek Simpson of Unite, who received more than £500,000. Does the Prime Minister agree that it is time for union boss pay restraint? The Prime Minister: It is interesting that Labour Members always listen to the trade unions, but never to the TaxPayers' Alliance. One reason is that they do not want to hear about excessive pay in the public sector, local government or among their paymasters, the trade unions. Grassroots Shropshire Action Day Tomorrow we are holding an action day in Wellington, near Telford. We will be collecting signatures calling for the new Chief Executive of Telford & Wrekin Council to take a 10 per cent pay cut, and we will also have a table with some TPA merchandise. If you are able to attend then please contact our National Grassroots Coordinator, Andrew Allison. Afterwards you are more than welcome to join us for a late lunch, and some liquid refreshment! Event: Shropshire Action Day When: 11.30am, Saturday 15 October Where: Market Square, Wellington. Supporter Prize On 31 October, we will be holding a draw to see who is the lucky winner of this month's supporter prize. Please forward this bulletin to you friends, family, and colleagues, and if they sign-up they could win a copy of Matthew Sinclair's new book, Let Them Eat Carbon, and £100 worth of Amazon vouchers. Best of the Blogs Burning our Money: Non-job of the week - Which London council is hiring a "Governance Officer – Openness and Transparency"? Unfortunately we can't tell you, as the job is being advertised anonymously via a recruitment firm - all very transparent! European Union: Brussels’ new £15 million propaganda temple - While the Eurozone burns, Eurocrats spend £15m on a ‘Parliamentarium’ – a brand new EU Parliament theme park that you paid for! Burning our Money: Senior police officers lose some perks - Without the free Audi A8, who's going to apply for a £148k-a-year Chief Constable role? Economics 101: Prune economic barriers to create growth or it might never come - This task is always going to be bumpy and cannot and should not be micromanaged to ensure the numbers always match in each quarter Burning our Money: Council spends £330,000 on severance packages, only to rehire the employees a month later - Stoke-on-trent City Council have splurged £330k on redundancy packages only to rehire the same staff months later Economics 101: Britain’s relative problem with youth unemployment has been growing for a while - It's a tragedy that so many young people can't find employment, but OECD data reveals a much longer-term problem than first thought Grassroots: Wiltshire Chief Executive goes - The leader of Wiltshire County Council has finally made a decision and jettisoned the Chief Executive of the council, who was paid £183,000 a year