http://taxpayersalliance.org/index.php/site/index/ Fairer taxes not lower taxes en clifford@edition.co.uk Copyright 2011 2011-05-20T08:50:13+00:00 http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/video-the-taxpayers-alliance-think-before-you-print http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/video-the-taxpayers-alliance-think-before-you-print#When:08:50:13Z The TPA got lots of media coverage for its claim that speed cameras caused rather than prevented road deaths. What happened next? This video looks at just one of many flaws in the TPA's speed camera research. For a more detailed critique read Michael Grayer's post, "Speed cameras don’t cause road casualties. Tell your friends." Related links: Research Note 3: Speeding fines TaxPayers' Alliance, 8/7/10 Right wing pressure group perpetuate anti-speed camera myth RoadPeace, 9/7/10 TaxPayers' Alliance on speed Letting Off Steam, 14/7/10 Speed cameras don’t cause road casualties. Tell your friends. Michael Grayer, NonToxic, 22/7/10 Speed camera debate: problems with national stats Owen Spottiswoode, Full Fact, 27/7/10 Oxfordshire speeding increase after cameras turned off BBC News, 10/8/10 Speed cameras: what does the evidence say? Mark Pack, Liberal Democrat Voice, 20/10/10 RAC Foundation report backs speed camera safety benefit BBC News, 24/11/10 TPA spin-off pretends speed cameras cause accidents Tim Fenton, Liberal Conspiracy, 24/1/11 Road deaths rise after speed cameras switch-off Oxford Mail, 26/3/11 Oxfordshire's speed cameras to be switched back on BBC News, 1/4/11 Oxfordshire speed cameras switched back on Guardian, 1/4/11 Speed camera switch-off empowers reckless driving George Monbiot, Guardian, 20/5/11 2011-05-20T08:50:13+00:00 http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/she-needs-a-maternity-unit http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/she-needs-a-maternity-unit#When:21:35:26Z We interrupt our extended break to bring you these highly innovative posters. Unlike the false claims made by a certain anti-electoral reform campaign led by a certain former TaxPayers’ Alliance director, these tackle the very real issues of the dismantling of the NHS and Osborne’s tax cuts for his corporate friends. Click images to enlarge. Read more about the posters at Left Foot Forward. Public services, TaxPayers' Alliance, 2011-05-14T21:35:26+00:00 http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/new-website-will-map-cuts-and-challenge-osbornomics http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/new-website-will-map-cuts-and-challenge-osbornomics#When:09:50:16Z Things will be a little quieter here over the next month, while we help to launch False Economy. Here is how the site describes itself: False Economy is for everyone concerned about the impact of the government’s spending cuts on their community, their family or their job. It is brought to you by local campaigners, those who rely on or support good public services and those who work to supply them. False Economy’s supporters want to build the broadest possible movement that can get the government to change direction. Of course the country has been damaged by the recession, but there are alternatives to these deep, rapid cuts. The government’s cuts are unfair, risk the fragile economic recovery and fail to make those who caused the crash pay a proper contribution through the tax system to clearing up the mess they made. False Economy is not a top-down national organisation. We recognise that there will be many campaigns against cuts, with some based locally, others that link up people in particular sectors, and others that bring together national organisations. Not all will agree on every aspect or share the same priorities. But while we welcome and respect this diversity, we believe that we will be more effective when we work together, share information and pool resources. False Economy will grow and develop as the campaign develops, but we launch with these initial objectives: To gather and map information and personal testimony about the cuts and their effects To show that there are alternative economic approaches To provide resources and tools for campaigners and campaign groups False Economy is for everyone who thinks the coalition is cutting too much, too fast and wants to do something about it. Head over to False Economy now and join its mailing list and social networks to keep up-to-date with developments. 2010-10-25T09:50:16+00:00 http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/new-schools-network-gove-responds-to-our-foi-request-with-business-plan http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/new-schools-network-gove-responds-to-our-foi-request-with-business-plan#When:11:48:11Z Case highlights contradictions – and hypocrisy – of government's assault on quangos and claims of transparency The Department for Education has responded to our Freedom of Information requests about its relationship with the New Schools Network – 70 days late, and following two interventions from the Information Commissioner and a parliamentary question from Labour MP Lisa Nandy. We asked: 1) To see the business case presented to the DfE by NSN. 2) Whether tenders were sought from other organisations. 3) Whether the DfE assessed NSN's funders to ensure there was no conflict with the DfE's work (eg to establish that none of the funders had a commercial interest in free schools), and, if so, to supply a list of NSN's funders. They responded (in reverse order): To question 3, the DfE replied simply "the Department does not hold information on NSN's donors" (which we must presume means they did not investigate them either). To question 2, the DfE confirmed no other tenders were sought: "NSN has been active in this area for some time and was effectively the only organisation capable of providing the level of support needed by the number of interested parties quickly enough to enable the first Free Schools to open by September 2011". (Note: NSN, which was founded by Gove's former advisor, Rachel Wolf, had been running for less than nine months when it was commissioned by the DfE.) In response to question 1, the DfE has provided a copy of the business plan. The plan has been heavily redacted, with the department relying on sections 43 (commercial confidentiality) and 36 (allowing the "the free and frank exchange of views" within government) of the Freedom of Information Act to do this. I haven't yet had a chance to study the plan in detail (and would welcome readers' views), but note that it makes its case by referring to 450 groups having contacted NSN between October 2009 and May 2010, and that "since that time there has been a significant surge in registrations to over 750 potential groups in just 3 weeks". (As we now know, NSN's definition of "potential groups" was rather liberal - it appears to have included anyone who requested information.) The plan continues: "Clearly not every single one of those groups will, or should, set up a school. But the majority will need some support from the Network." Given that only 16 schools have been greenlighted, questions remain over what support was required by, or given to, the "majority". Cabinet office minister Francis Maude yesterday justified the abolition of 192 quangos by saying it would "restore accountability and responsibility" to public life. But passing government work to private organisations and dubious charities like New Schools Network shows the contradiction at the heart of government claims of transparency. It's one thing that we can't make Freedom of Information requests directly to these private recipients of taxpayers' money – making them much less accountable than quangos. But it's quite another that the government invokes commercial confidentiality clauses to suppress its own dealings with such organisations. For an excellent alternative to the New Schools Network, check out the Local Schools Network, launched last month. What a strange political terrain we now inhabit: a state-funded network promoting independent schools, and an independent network promoting state schools. Links: The DfE's response to our FoI The disclosed New Schools Network business plan Previous posts: Information Commissioner tells Gove to respond to our FoI requests DfE not so keen on transparency after all Gove fails to respond to our Freedom of Information requests New Schools Network: questions for Michael Gove 2010-10-15T11:48:11+00:00 http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/we-dont-have-a-blueprint http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/we-dont-have-a-blueprint#When:09:19:44Z As the extent of the coalition government’s attack on public services becomes more evident, thousands have signed up for a ‘Coalition of Resistance’ (CoR). But how will it be organised? What can be learnt from past campaigns? I recently interviewed Paul Mackney, a driving spirit behind the new group, for Red Pepper magazine How did you get involved in the anti-cuts campaign? I spoke at a meeting on solidarity with Greece where I said we needed a coalition of resistance in this country.  A number of us, including many campaigners from the Stop the War Coalition, then formed the Coalition of Resistance Steering Committee. In early August, we issued a statement with 74 signatories and headed up by Tony Benn. Greece has been inspirational because it has shown that hundreds of thousands of people can organise and fight back.  It was a picture of a big banner with 'Resistance' in five languages, draped in front of the Acropolis in December 2008, that spurred me to action.  What can we learn from previous campaigns, like Stop the War and the anti-poll tax protests? We will need to be as colourful as those campaigns, involving all generations and all walks of life. There is a danger of being overtaken by gloom when faced with such policies as the imposition of academies and the privatisation of the Post Office. But, provided we are non-sectarian, facilitating and encouraging rather than commanding, resistance can be fun - with well-developed warm relationships based on solidarity. We need to nurture maximum local activity either through existing campaigns or, where they don’t exist, as 'badged' CoR events. Whilst local focus is of critical importance, it is not enough.  A Haringey councillor was asked recently what would persuade him to do more to fight the cuts and he said "200,000 people outside Downing Street".  That doesn't justify his inertia, but he is right. We saw off the poll tax by many acts of resistance and organising on the streets. And the internet and social media provide us with far greater organisational opportunities than were open to the poll tax protestors. Is there any debate about what kind of organisational model CoR should follow? And how will its November conference be organised? Currently the work is organised by a Steering Committee which has emerged from meetings of activists. It meets once a week at Houseman's bookshop in Kings Cross. Clearly the conference will have to determine a more democratic, but hopefully not sclerotic, structure with an elected national committee and so on. It is planned, within the limitations of the Camden Centre venue, to organise breakout groups at the 27 November conference to enable people to connect with others from their area or sector and to join up existing or spawn new campaigns of resistance. Many activists became disillusioned with the role of the SWP in the anti-war movement, feeling they were too intent on controlling it. Is there scope for the anti-cuts movement to become more pluralistic? I'm not happy singling anyone out. Many retreated into their organisational shell or inactivity after the forming of the ConDem government. But we should not forget the essential role the SWP played early on in building a genuine united front in Stop the War which organised the UK's largest ever demonstration in 2003.  I don’t think we can predict exactly what a vibrant anti-cuts movement will look like. The Steering Committee neither had, nor has, a blueprint.  The task is huge.  Already we are bringing together pensioners, students, community campaigns and trade unionists.  A new campaign, BARAC (Black Activists Rising Against Cuts) has affiliated to CoR because it sees the danger of obliteration for poor Black urban communities.  How can the campaign reach out beyond the "usual suspects" of committed left and union activists? Firstly the usual suspects include six million public sector workers, the majority of them women, who will be questioning the neo-liberal agenda of the ConDem government. People are much less deferential to a political elite which is seen as self-serving, close to the bankers and tinged with corruption. The CoR statement stresses that “an alternative budget would place the banks under democratic control, and raise revenue by increasing tax for the rich, plugging tax loopholes, withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, abolishing the nuclear ‘deterrent’, cancelling the Trident replacement.”  There is a hunger for these arguments as evidenced by those who have taken the Statement to street stalls and tube stations and enjoyed the spectacle of queues to sign ‘Tony Benn’s statement against cuts and privatisation’. Fact sheets, of the sort prepared by Red Pepper demolishing the myths about the ‘necessity’ for cuts will encourage the grass roots, persuading  those fighting for their own local services that they are part of a bigger movement for a caring civil society,  in the same way as people in 1945 (when the country was far ‘broker’ than now) had the political will to demand a better society, the NHS and full employment. On the CoR Steering Committee there has been a degree of humility about grand design and a lot of ‘learning by doing’. Nobody can be sure where this struggle will end up but we know that there is nothing to be lost by developing the resistance. In calling on people to join CoR, we have drawn inspiration from Alice Walker’s message of hope that ‘resistance is the secret of joy’. • Paul Mackney is a former general secretary of NATFHE (later the UCU). The full version of this interview is at http://www.redpepper.org.uk/We-don-t-have-a-blueprint www.coalitionofresistance.org.uk 2010-10-05T09:19:44+00:00 http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/information-commissioner-tells-gove-to-respond-to-our-foi-requests http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/information-commissioner-tells-gove-to-respond-to-our-foi-requests#When:11:28:21Z The Information Commissioner has told the Department for Education to respond to our Freedom of Information requests about “free schools” and the New Schools Network within 10 working days. The Commissioner’s letter to the DfE states: The Information Commissioner has received a complaint from Mr C Singer stating that no response has been sent to an information request submitted to your organisation on 6 July 2010, which was acknowledged by your organisation on 7 July 2010 and given the reference number 2010/0051083. Any public authority in receipt of such a request is under a duty to respond within 20 working days of receipt. As it is the case that you have not responded but acknowledged receipt of the request, we would ask that you now respond within 10 working days of receipt of this letter. We should be grateful if you could also provide a copy of your response to this office. Our unanswered questions have also been mentioned by Labour MP Lisa Nandy in Parliament (see question 15490), and journalist and campaigner Fiona Millar in the Guardian. Of course it would be even better if we could address our FoI enquiries directly to the New Schools Network. Communities Secretary Eric Pickles recently threatened the closure of “unaccountable quangos”. But those quangos – covered by the Freedom of Information Act – are paragons of transparency compared with the New Schools Network. 2010-09-28T11:28:21+00:00 http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/will-huttons-pay-review-the-missing-questions http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/will-huttons-pay-review-the-missing-questions#When:10:20:34Z Despite running such a vast and well-funded organisation, we were shocked to discover we’d missed the deadline for submitting evidence to Will Hutton’s Review of Fair Pay in the Public Sector. One welcome aspect of the review is that it will probe at least a little into private sector pay too. Nevertheless there seems to be gap in its terms of reference and list of 20 key questions: the issue of pay differentials in private companies providing services to the state. We’ve sent the following request to the review: I apologise for having missed the deadline for submissions. However I am concerned that there is an area central to your inquiry which is not covered by the 20 questions listed in your call for evidence. This is the issue of pay differentials within private sector organisations providing services to the public sector. As more services are outsourced, it becomes meaningless to focus on pay within public sector organisations without looking at private contractors. In addition, private contractors are not subject to the same rules of transparency, nor covered by the Freedom of Information Act. The review needs to look at this disparity, as basic information about pay is a prerequisite for further action or analysis. I do hope that it is not too late to consider these important issues.   2010-09-13T10:20:34+00:00 http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/dfe-not-so-keen-on-transparency-after-all http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/dfe-not-so-keen-on-transparency-after-all#When:09:20:10Z The Department for Education is now 35 days’ late replying to my Freedom of Information request on “free schools” and the New Schools Network. And it hasn’t even acknowledged my request for an internal inquiry into its handling of this. Both are supposed to be dealt with within 20 working days. But I did speak to a very apologetic man at the DfE who said “there’s no excuse for this really” and explained he’d drafted a reply that he hoped I’d receive “by the end of the week” – once it had been approved. That was about three weeks ago. Here is my letter to the Guardian, published (in slightly edited form) today: The news that only 16 “free schools” are set to open next year (Report, 6 September) should again focus attention on the New Schools Network, the campaign group hired by Michael Gove to promote the new schools and assist with applications. NSN, run by a former adviser to Gove, is being paid £500,000 for this work – equivalent to a taxpayer subsidy of £31,250 per successful application. Four of the group’s trustees and advisers are also involved in Ark, the company launched by City hedge fund speculators to run academies, and it is notable that two of the schools announced this week are Ark projects. What we don’t know, however, is who, other than the government, subsidises NSN, and whether its funders include organisations with a more rapacious interest in free schools than the not-for-profit Ark. My freedom of information requests – aimed at finding out more about the education department’s relationship with NSN and seeking assurance that there is no scope for a conflict of interest – have so far been stonewalled, as have parliamentary questions asked by Labour MP Lisa Nandy. Clifford Singer The Other TaxPayers’ Alliance See also: Gove fails to respond to our Freedom of Information requests. 2010-09-09T09:20:10+00:00 http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/they-want-lower-taxes-but-love-free-museums http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/they-want-lower-taxes-but-love-free-museums#When:21:34:50Z Guest post by Sunny Hundal (Cross-posted from Liberal Conspiracy) The TaxPayers Alliance are hosting the annual ‘European Resource Bank’ conference today – essentially a gathering of radical right-wing lobby groups and think-tanks from the UK and USA. The website states: The TaxPayers’ Alliance has the privilege of hosting the seventh annual European Resource Bank meeting from 8-10th September. The name comes from the notion of building a ‘bank’ of human capital by creating and renewing the ties between academics, free marketeers, think tanks, campaign groups and taxpayer groups from across Europe, the United States and the rest of the world. We kick off the conference on Wednesday evening with a champagne reception at a fantastic penthouse apartment overlooking central London. A champagne reception at a penthouse suite? Clearly the cuts aren’t affecting the groups claiming to represent… er, ordinary taxpayers. The event is also reported in the Guardian today: The event, the largest of its kind in Europe, is heavily sponsored by US lobby groups that have backed the Tea Party grouping as its challenges moderate Republican party candidates in congressional elections. Critics of the event said it established a clear link between British rightwing groups and aggressive American lobbyists who pursued low taxes, loose regulation and widespread privatisation of public services. The event is being sponsored by the Cato Institute and Americans for Prosperity Foundation, amongst others. As the New Yorker detailed a few weeks ago, both organisations have been funded heavily by the billionaire Koch brothers. Nice money if you can get it. The same Koch brothers also, from 2005 to 2008, “vastly outdid ExxonMobil in giving money to organizations fighting legislation related to climate change, underwriting a huge network of foundations, think tanks, and political front groups.” You’d think these people would be very much against government subsidies then. But what’s this on their ‘local info’ page? Many museums in the UK are free to visit – these are marked where applicable. No mention of why these museums are free to visit then? Thought these bunch of radical libertarians would be eschewing such blatant government subsidies… 2010-09-08T21:34:50+00:00 http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/bright-ideas-to-cut-budget-from-the-british-public http://taxpayersalliance.org/news/bright-ideas-to-cut-budget-from-the-british-public#When:13:13:44Z From Taiwan’s Next Media Animation, a hilarious satire of the UK’s Spending Challenge website. (h/t @BeatriceJBray) 2010-08-24T13:13:44+00:00