CentreRight

Matthew Elliott: A response to Janice Small and CAER

On ConservativeHome yesterday, Janice Small – the director of Conservative Action for Electoral Reform (CAER) – explained why Conservatives should vote ‘Yes’ to the Alternative Vote. Unsurprisingly perhaps, in my new role as Campaign Director of the No2AV campaign, I disagree with her. I disagree because:

“AV is not … a proportional system. In some elections it could even produce more distorted results than the present first-past-the-post system. AV would not guarantee a more representative parliament or one better able to hold the government to account. … The public will not see this as correcting a broken system; most agree that the system is broken because of the MPs' expenses scandal, the lack of accountability and a government that makes up legislation as it goes along, rather than getting to grips with the real problems of a broken economy and a broken society.”

These are not my words, but Janice’s, writing for Comment is Free in February of this year. Janice’s article was in response to the announcement that Gordon Brown would be including a pledge in the Labour manifesto to hold a referendum on the Alternative Vote. She went on to argue that:

“The only reason that Labour is now proposing the AV system is because they see electoral advantage in it. … This will be unpopular with his voters and leave the electorate with a very sour taste in its mouth if we are in hung parliament territory come the general election.”

In yesterday’s article, Janice hit the nail on the head when she wrote that “those who focus on crude party political outcomes are missing the point”. This referendum (should it go ahead in May) is about much more than partisan politics or whether one system favours one party or another. It is about the democratic future of our country.

Like so many who are in support of electoral reform, Janice’s article for Comment is Free suggests that she is actually quite sceptical of the potential of AV to change anything. She finished this article by saying:

“Let us have a proper debate on the different systems, finish Lords reform and abolish the undemocratic closed list system for MEPs, before changing the Westminster system – otherwise, it will, rightly, just be seen as cynical gerrymandering.”

I agree that First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) isn’t perfect – it could be improved by the introduction of recall of MPs, Open Primaries and Citizens’ Initiatives – but it is decisive. It has arguably produced the result that the country needed at every election, including the coalition that saw the country through WW2 to the current coalition that is fighting the financial hole we are in today. It is transparent and it is accountable.

I’m looking forward to listening to the debate in the House of Commons this afternoon, as MPs consider the constitutional issues involved in the timing of the referendum and whether there should be a threshold. Whatever Parliament decides is the fairest playing field for the referendum, I look forward to debating these issues further with Janice Small and her colleagues at Conservative Action for Electoral Reform over the coming year.

Dragons slam wasteful Government grants to businesses

Did anybody see Dragons’ Den last night? If you missed it, there is one pitch definitely worth watching. German entrepreneur Ralf Klinnert presented a children’s fitness game based around cones with lights attached; in five years he’s made just £7,000, and sold only fifteen sets of the game. The Dragons asked him how he has survived on this sum of money – and his response is revealing. He tells the panel that he has received a Government grant of £148,000.

Duncan Bannatyne couldn't believe the news and was visibly angry: “I’m sick and tired of seeing the money being wasted, taxpayers’ money.”

Deborah Meaden also expressed her concern: “What worries me is you won’t care if I hand my £120,000 over because it’s not your money. And when it is your money, I tell you Ralf, it feels a lot, lot different in driving costs down because I think if you didn’t get £150,000 from the grants system, we’d be sitting here with that [the game] costing a lot less money to produce.”

True, the entrepreneur eventually received his desired investment from two other Dragons. But even they were deeply critical of his current costs of production which appear to have been predominantly leveraged by the taxpayer. More broadly, the exchange showed why the policy of the Government taxing businesses too much and then giving out grants is a deeply flawed one. It’s been done for years through the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs), and past TPA research has shown that RDAs have failed in their key objectives: picking winners breeds an uncompetitive and inefficient business environment, as Deborah Meaden pointed out last night.

Lower taxes and further relief for small start-ups would stimulate genuine private sector dynamism, which is crucial for future growth and job creation. So while it’s good that the RDAs were abolished in the Budget, it’s vital that the new Local Enterprise Partnerships do not simply replace them as grant-givers. It’s certainly not something that the Dragons would approve of.

The first task for Bill

As ConservativeHome reports, Bill Cash has been elected unopposed as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee.

This is great news. I’ve already commented on the qualities and experience that he will bring to the role. These will prove essential in chairing a committee that I estimate already on average has to review each flagged EU document put before it in around four minutes (and even that is assuming that large numbers continue to go through on the nod).

To appreciate the scale of the task at hand, just look at the volume of laws sent to the Commons in the period since the election was called; a backlog which no committee has yet had the chance to review.

Crucially, Bill’s democratic credentials are solid. The system of scrutiny currently works badly, and I suspect the Member for Stone will have suggestions on how to improve matters, just as David Cameron has said he wants to see happen. A starter might be to tear away the veil of obscurantism. For too long the committee was obliged under its former chairman to sit in camera. The only rationale for that was shame at the way a bust system was being run, and at the antics of ministers in Brussels. Bill’s first act should be to allow the public to sit in on the sessions, so they can see for themselves how Britain’s laws were and are being made.

Cash '22

Bill Cash is a force of Parliamentary nature. I’m not surprised that there is a rumour circulating (as reported on yesterday’s ConHome) that there may be new moves to nobble the 1922 Committee, because some people wouldn’t like to see him chair Parliament’s EU scrutiny committee.  He’d be good at it.

Let me immediately declare an interest. I’ve known Bill for a decade. Indeed, I first cut my political teeth working at the European Foundation, an organisation that was at the forefront of campaigns to educate parliamentarians and the public on developments in Brussels. But it’s precisely that understanding that leads me to the conclusion that he would make a fantastic chairman.

He is after all supremely well qualified. A constitutional lawyer, he is a past Shadow Attorney General and has previously been a legal adviser to London’s Quebec legation – an office that knows a thing or two about federalism in practice. Importantly, for a committee that ranges so widely in its subject matter, he has expertise in a wide range of subjects.  He has - incredibly - been a member of the committee since 1985, that is to say even before the Single European Act. In short, he knows his stuff.

Choosing the right chairman for the EU scrutiny committee will be important. It is one of the most critical committees, so much so that under Labour the public were banned from watching. The sheer volume of laws going through it is massive. One past member recollects that in the time it took for him to turn to a colleague to ask a question, several items had been passed through on the nod by the committee including one he intended to challenge. A good chairman would be able to help sift the nuggets from the mass of grit.

Good news on the RDAs

It’s always worth delving into the Budget to find things that slip under the radar. A quick scan through the document this afternoon for information on the Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) threw up something worthwhile: they are to be abolished through the Public Bodies Bill, for which a White Paper will be produced later this year. Of course, we will be keeping a close eye on it to ensure that this Budget promise is not reneged on or fudged in any way.

This is a real win for the TPA, as we have called for their abolition for some years now. We produced a paper in 2008 which outlined a strong case for this, and followed that up at the weekend with research showing how most of their grants go to the public sector. They have not corrected the regional disparities that they were supposed to. Indeed, our research showed that that they’ve actually increased under the RDAs’ watch.

Of course, it remains to be seen what shape ‘Local Enterprise Partnerships’ will take – but the removal of these unelected and unaccountable quangos is a huge step in the right direction. Combined with a sustained decrease in corporation tax it could help breed private sector-led growth that will boost jobs and wealth.

The odds of a Lisbon re-ratification

Crikey - if ever you needed proof that the Lisbon Treaty is still a hot topic, you need look no further than the storm of comments attracted by my Centre Right post on that very subject yesterday.

Some of the commenters questioned whether the changes set to be made to the Lisbon Treaty really would need to be re-ratified by Parliament, citing the Treaty's self-amending "passerelle" clause. Without going into too much legalese and constitutional hokum, these queries deserve an answer.

Mark Wallace has written a more detailed response over at the TPA site, and here is the crucial section:

First, it appears that this section of the Treaty is simply not subject to passerelle.

Second, even if it was, passerelle requires the unanimous agreement of every member state - and every state has the right to demand an InterGovernmental Conference and ratification instead. Britain would have a veto, and it would be in total conflict with David Cameron's new EU policy for a Cameron Government not to use it.

Third, even if this area was subject to passerelle, and even if the British Government failed to use the veto and demand an IGC, Spain has already demanded one. Furthermore, the European Parliament looks set to vote in Spain's support on Thursday, and the European Commission is in agreement too.

Beyond those technical, Brussels-derived arguments, there is also a compelling bit of evidence from an unlikely source here in Britain.

I spoke last night to Bruno Waterfield, the Brussels Correspondent for the Telegraph. He confirmed to me that he had checked the story with no less an authority than the Foreign Office, who had confirmed the need for Parliamentary approval of the new Treaty.

It's certainly controversial, and goodness knows the EU and its acolytes have slipped out of what would otherwise be described as "the rules" plenty times before, but it sill seems fairly likely that this is a runner.

A game-changer for Cameron?

As my colleague Lee Rotherham documents, the prospect of a new IGC on the Lisbon Treaty offer David Cameron a potentially game-changing opportunity, to move the polls from hung Parliament territory towards a clear Conservative majority.

Due to various procedural changes, the Lisbon Treaty is going to have to be ratified by Parliament yet again after the General Election. David Cameron has always been explicit that had he been Prime Minister when the Treaty came forward for ratification, he would have held a referendum. Until now that has simply been a hypothetical situation – but now it is set to become a reality.

If, as the EU Commission intends, an Inter-Governmental Conference on 17^th/18^th June agrees a new version of the Lisbon Treaty, it will have to be put before Parliament. Will David Cameron remain true to his pledges on the topic and seize this opportunity by pledging to hold a referendum in that circumstance?

As well as being the right thing to do, a referendum pledge now could be dynamite in the last few days of the election. Clegg and Brown would be put on the spot, challenged to make such a pledge themselves. If they did, then it would be good for Britain, we’d get the Lisbon referendum we were all promised and Cameron would have shown himself to be a leader. If they did not, then Cameron would be able to head into the election as only man willing to trust the people by holding the long-desired referendum.

This is a golden opportunity for the Conservatives to do the right thing by Britain and to do themselves a favour. David Cameron should grab it with both hands.

Two weeks, 1,500 miles and £6.7 billion - the Debt Clock Tour

 We wrote on CentreRight a couple of weeks ago about the launch of our Debt Clock campaign. 1,500 miles and £6,698,630,137 of new national debt later, we’ve completed our full-scale tour of the UK.

To recap swiftly, the clock is the world’s largest of its type: a seven metre long digital clock that counts up the national debt, mounted on a 14 metre lorry. With the British Government borrowing an alarming amount this year, the clock is ticking up by £5,169 per second.

From the launch in Westminster, via Oxford, Bristol, Cardiff, Ludlow, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Alnwick, Newcastle, Hull, Peterborough and Harlow, the clock made a big impression wherever it went.

Almost everyone I spoke to had two stages to their reaction. First, they would ask if it was a real number, amazed that the Government could really be borrowing £446m a day. Once we’d assured them that it was the case, their jaws would drop.

This was what motivated us to do the Debt Clock campaign in the first place. So often we hear politicians talking about millions, billions and trillions – indeed I’m sure we’ll hear more of that in the final Leaders’ Debate tonight – but until you actually see these amounts spelled out it is hard to imagine how large they really are.

As well as a lot of members of the public expressing their support, we were fortunate to be joined at several of our stops by PPCs. As a non-partisan campaign, we invited the candidates from all the main parties to each event, and a good number took some time out of their campaigning to join the Debt Clock tour. They included Conservatives David Davis (above), Chloe Smith, Rob Halfon, Iain McGill, Anne Marie Trevelyan, Nicola Blackwood, Gagan Mohindra and Philip Dunne, as well as Lib Dem and UKIP candidates in several areas. A full photo gallery of each stop on the Debt Clock tour is now available here.

The media response was very good. Presented with a strong visual image, and an opportunity to discuss this massive issue with a local angle, local papers and regional TV and radio picked the clock up, as did several national papers, the BBC, Reuters, Bloomberg and even ITV’s Tonight programme for their National Debt special.

To put the debt into perspective, our researchers have produced a few facts to illustrate just how large it is:

• The Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol cost £9.6m in today’s money. The national debt could build a new version of the Clifton Suspension Bridge 33,490,874 km long.

• The Government currently borrows enough to build a new Welsh Assembly (£67m) every three and a half hours.

•  Old Trafford has more than 68,000 seats. If you were to pack the place to capacity, each spectator could become a millionaire with just five and a half months of new debt. Manchester United’s huge debt, run up by the Glazers, is now £716.6m – an amount which the Government currently borrows every 1 day, 14 hours and 30 minutes.

• You could build an Angel of the North made of silver (£97m) in just 5 hours, 12 minutes of new Government borrowing.

The debt truck itself is now in storage, ready to reappear come the next emergency budget or spending review, but if you’d like a debt clock widget to embed on your own website or blog, you can get one here.

Big Brother Watch manifesto

This week Big Brother Watch, which I founded and is run by Alex Deane and Dylan Sharpe, released an election manifesto (to see the full document please click here) - a list of achievable legislative pledges that would go some way to rolling-back the surveillance state; give the British people greater freedom to live their lives without state interference; and end the persecution of the law-abiding British family.

The legislation we tackle in this document range from the huge showpiece bills of this overbearing government - like the National Identity Register and the Independent Safeguarding Authority - to those laws that make up the avalanche of legislation - over 4,300 created since 1997 - that intrude into everyday life, creating criminals out of people who are simply trying to live their lives without government interference.

Looking at the recent party manifestos, it is clear that the Labour Party are not willing to make any effort to correct their legacy of intrusive government - albeit having the cheek to declare they are "proud" of their record on civil liberties.

The Conservatives, by contrast, have devoted a whole section of their manifesto to the issue of privacy and freedom. We are delighted to see that they have adopted a policy of cutting back on the intrusive powers of entry that allow state inspectors into our homes – an issue Big Brother Watch tackled in our second major report.

And we also welcome the scrapping of unnecessary state databases like the National Identity Register, ContactPoint and reform of the DNA database; taking innocent people off the system and putting on the thousands of violent criminals caught before DNA technology was introduced.

At Big Brother Watch we think it should be a priority of an incoming Conservative administration to introduce proper consultation on any new CCTV system - with full scrutiny of the cost implications - and a firm commitment not to introduce “pay-as-you-throw” technology into our rubbish bins.

Longer term, Big Brother Watch would like to see a stop in the transfer of police powers to private security firms and the removal of powers to issue ‘on-the-spot’ fines from council wardens. We would also like to toughen-up the laws allowing our data to be shared with other EU countries and the introduction of a European FOI Act, so we can find out what Brussels knows about us.

To read all of the 30 pledges please go to http://www.bigbrotherwatch.org.uk/manifesto.pdf

Thoughts on George Osborne's announcement

George Osbourne's pledge to partly roll back the hike in National Insurance announced by the Government, and pay for that tax cut with an attack on wasteful spending, is very welcome.  Some commentators may describe this as an unfunded tax cut but, as we show in our new book How to Cut Public Spending (and Still Win an Election), it is eminently doable.

National Insurance is a tax on jobs.  Following the recession ONS statistics show that 2.45 million people were unemployed at the last account.  Young people are particularly hard hit, with 715,000 18-24s unemployed at the last count.  And the true picture is probably even worse than those headline figures suggest, because it is obscured by people leaving the labour market and the big rise in unsustainable public sector employment.  Ensuring that there are as many opportunities as possible for people to find their way back into work should be a key priority for government.

Undermining people’s chances by making it more expensive for employers to take people on is a dreadful idea.  Analysis from a range of economic forecasters suggests it will increase unemployment.  Research for the Federation of Small Businesses by the CEBR suggests that adding 1p to Employers’ National Insurance Contributions will cost 57,000 jobs at SMEs alone.

The challenge is to pay for this eminently worthwhile tax cut while still taking credible action to deal with the deficit.  It will be easier as all those people not rendered unemployed will be paying income tax instead of taking benefits.  But that won’t do the job entirely.  The Conservatives are relying on pushing through greater efficiency savings than the Government, with the help of experts like Sir Peter Gershon.  Efficiency savings are a good idea, and they are right to look at IT projects as a big area where the Government has wasted money.  Our research suggests the average public sector capital procurement project goes over budget by a third.

However, there have been mixed results from previous top-down efficiency drives.  If the Conservatives really want greater efficiency then, as Mike Denham writes in our new book, they should look at fiscal decentralisation which is associated with more efficient public sectors internationally.  And they need to go beyond broad efficiency measures and look at cutting ineffective and non-priority spending.  Scrapping the Regional Development Agencies for example, could help pay for this cut in business tax which will do far more to help most businesses than their grants.

This is a good announcement from the Conservatives.  If they show greater clarity on spending cuts, this could be the start of an extremely credible package for jobs, growth and sustainable public finances.

The other vested interests lobbying for taxpayers’ money

Gordon  Brown has cost the UK £3 trillion, run up a £700 billion budget deficit and forced a prospective Conservative government into making some tough decisions.

Yesterday marked the release of my new book, co-authored with David Craig, called Fleeced! How we’ve been betrayed by the politicians, bureaucrats and bankers…and how much they’ve cost us. It is the very first book to bring together the total cost of government spending, the bailouts, the banking crisis and Westminster expenses scandal in one comprehensive text and lays bare the terrible truth about Gordon Brown’s criminal miscalculations since he assumed control of the UK economy in 1997.

Yesterday also marked the start of the TUC conference. As Tim Montgomerie has noted elsewhere on this site, no one has taken much notice of this event for some time, but with public sector cuts now high on the political agenda and Labour floundering around for any support it can muster, the TUC has once again become worthy of media attention.

Unsurprisingly, despite the dire financial straits in which Britain currently resides, the unions are looking to protect public sector jobs, wages, expenses and gold-plated pensions from any planned cuts (which is ironic given that Unison has recently abolished their own employee final-salary pension).

Nevertheless, the TUC may not be alone in trying to block spending cuts by the next Government – there are other vested interests which the Conservatives (assuming they are the next Government) will come up against, and it could be politically expedient for the Party to take them on straight away.

First are the consultants, who George Osborne rightly highlighted in his conference speech last year as a source of spending cuts to off-set council tax rises. By our reckoning, consultants cost the British taxpayer £2.8 billion a year. The NHS, for instance, spends around £600 million a year on management consultants, a cool £15,000 per manager in an already bloated system.

Say it isn't so, David

Ken Clarke’s announcement on the BBC Politics Show yesterday that the Conservatives would support the Lisbon Treaty if the Irish ratified it before the Tories come into Government was intensely disappointing. While many eurosceptics had been naturally concerned about the vague promises that “we will not let matters rest there” trooped out by numerous Shadow Cabinet members in the hot seat in recent weeks, many had hoped faithfully that the strong implication that the Conservative leadership would deliver  a retrospective referendum was accurate. It is now down to David Cameron to clarify that position.

When Ken Clarke was invited into the Shadow Cabinet, the nation was told that he would not be allowed to force the Conservative Party into following his unnatural and unpopular support for closer EU integration. Sadly, it seems that yesterday he attempted to rush the Opposition into just such a commitment. Originally, he accepted publicly that he was out of step with majority Conservative and public opinion, and promised to bend to the Party line on Europe. He appears to have forgotten that pledge and blurted out his own, personal opinions as the Conservative Party’s official policy yet again.

Surely it must only be his personal view, because the arguments made by everybody else against the Lisbon Treaty and for a referendum remain as strong as ever. The case made by David Cameron against Lisbon is still as compelling as it was 13 days ago when he said that the Treaty would transfer too much power to Brussels, and that it was a part of the “endless process of building a European superstate” which is anathema to his and most people’s vision of our future relationship with Europe. Mr Cameron was right to promise to change the law so that powers can never be given away to the EU without a referendum first – and Ken Clarke’s comments are clearly incompatible with that promise.

Why the BBC licence fee should be cut

Today, the Commons vote on the level of the BBC licence fee. The Government seems to be planning to approve yet another increase, whilst the Tories are proposing a freeze. A freeze would of course be better than another rise, but in actual fact a cut is perfectly possible.

Leaving aside the larger issues of organisational waste and so on, which must be dealt with in order to produce larger reductions, there is a £6 slice of the licence fee which could be got rid of with no problem at all: the digital switchover levy.

This was added in 2007 to raise the BBC a total of £800m over 5 years that would be spent on the hardware changes involved in moving to digital TV broadcasting and the public awareness advertising to make sure everyone knew about it and got their telly set up in time.

In Parliament back in 2007, Tessa Jowell in her capacity as Culture, Media and Sport Minister made very clear that this was going to be a temporary levy:

'In particular the licence fee settlement will fund the £600m scheme we are putting in place to help elderly and disabled people make the switch and as part of our comittment to the universal broadcasting ensure that no-one is left behind. [...] The BBC will also pay for the £200m public communications campaign being run by Digital UK to ensure people are prepared properly and informed properly for switchover.

The Great European Rip-Off

Next Thursday a new book by me and David Craig - author of the influential Plundering the Public Sector and Squandered books - will be released, The Great European Rip-Off.  You can pre-order the book already but, in the meantime, we have revealed dynamite new evidence of how too many MEPs enrich themselves at the taxpayers’ expense.

Among the explosive findings in the book are details about the Galvin Report which contains evidence of widespread abuse.  MEPs have been paying expenses to shell companies, huge bonuses are paid to use up an MEP’s staff allowance and travel expenses are wide open to abuse.

We have also shown that, while still living comfortably and enjoying the basic staffing and facilities they need, MEPs can rack up enough in dodgy expenses claims to emerge a millionaire after a single term in the European Parliament.  On top of that, thanks to a combination of tax changes, exchange rate movements and a pay rise MEPs will be getting a 47% pay rise this year.

Not all MEPs are rotten.  The Conservative MEPs, under the leadership of Timothy Kirkhope MEP, led the way earlier this year by publishing expenses details online, but there are far too many MEPs abusing their expenses and enjoying the gravy train.  For many European parliamentarians, getting elected has become a route to personal enrichment rather than a way of serving their constituents.  This doesn’t just cost taxpayers’ money that is lost to fraud but makes honest politics impossible.

The Conservative's next party political broadcast?

When the Conservatives are thinking about their next party political broadcast, they might like to look at a powerful TV Ad produced by Ridley Scott in the mid-1980s called the Deficit Trials.

Unfortunately, the major networks in the US didn't carry it at the time because it was deemed to be too controversial, but I think it would make a powerful impact now were the Conservatives to produce a similar Ad for a British audience.

Sharing the burdens of recession

Iain Martin notes in the Telegraph today that the Conservatives need to replace a “doomed policy predicated on the idea of sharing growth that is now non-existent”.  He is absolutely right and the party’s leadership clearly accept that.

If they thought that “sharing the proceeds of growth” was relevant to the troubled economic times we are currently enduring then they would be proposing spending cuts and tax increases; sharing the recession-driven fall in government revenue just as they proposed to share growth-driven increases.  You don’t have to be a Keynesian to think that is a pretty unappealing idea and that is why they're looking for a new economic policy.

Here’s an idea for a policy better suited to a recession: “Sharing the burdens of recession.”

We can put some stylised numbers on what that would mean.  The European Commission expects that the UK economy will shrink by roughly one per cent next year, roughly £15 billion.  State spending makes up roughly 40 per cent of the economy.  If spending were cut by 40 per cent of £15 billion, if the public sector did its share of the belt tightening, then that would mean savings in public spending of £6 billion.  That would be enough to put £100 a year in the pocket of every taxpayer.

You could definitely go further, and the TaxPayers’ Alliance would, but if you put that £6 billion into a simple tax cut that would benefit everyone (e.g. increasing the income tax threshold) it would be a major step towards making the Conservatives the party of choice for anyone wanting to see more money in their pocket.

Are savings of £6 billion achievable?

Definitely. The TPA has already set out a single measure that would save nearly half the amount required:  Scrap the regional development agencies.  Eric Pickles has already said, to quote from the Birmingham Post, that these bodies are “unrepresentative and unaccountable, and the best thing that could be said about their performance was that they hadn’t done any serious damage.” There are plenty more clear and tangible savings to be had in the 1,162 quangos and agencies that litter Government.  From English Partnership to government funded consumer pressure groups and NHS regional bodies there are ineffective organisations and programmes that can be scrapped.

Sharing the proceeds of growth is a slogan suited to very different economic times, the good times which we enjoyed until recently.  Now the proper question isn’t how we will share the proceeds of a growing economy, but how we will share the burdens of a recession.  The Conservatives should provide an answer to that question which will appeal to a taxpaying public that wants politicians to deliver value for money. Families are tightening their belts. So should government.

Is Manuelgate the worst offence the BBC is guilty of?

Russell Brand, a BBC presenter, phoned Andrew Sachs, to brag about his alleged sexual exploits with Mr. Sachs granddaughter. Jonathan Ross, a BBC presenter, famous for being famous, goaded him on. Now Mr. Brand has been forced to resign and Mr. Ross has been suspended. This happened because two people complained to the BBC about comments made in their show, other complaints followed later.

Whatever one thinks of Brand and Ross, and I must say I don’t think either of them fulfils the BBC’s remit to provide quality programming, this episode reveals the warped priorities of the BBC.  We all paid for their ill judged comedy routine because if you receive TV broadcasts, you are required to pay the BBC licence fee. However, no one died, the statements were not racist and they did not encourage violence.

There are numerous other examples of far worse views being suported, at our expense, by the BBC.  At the same time as Brand and Ross made their offensive call the BBC comment sections on Israel include numerous comments, allowed by BBC monitors, which are profoundly racist and excuse and in some cases encourage aggression against Israel.  A recent example can be found in the Antisemitism Discourse in Britain 2007 Report by the Community Security Trust.

Anti Semitic Discourse in Britain: A Review

Anti Semitism is regrettably alive and well in Britain. A large minority of the British public agree or somewhat agree that Jewish people are only loyal to other Jews, have too much power in the financial world and control US Middle Eastern policy. This is the assessment of a new report by the Community Security Trust detailing Anti Semitism in Britain in 2007.

Particularly alarming are the results of a 2007 European opinion survey by the Anti Defamation League which is cited in the report. This survey canvassed the views of Britons on Jews, Israel and anti Semitism. It revealed that a significant minority of Britons hold anti-semitic beliefs.

This minority believes that Jewish people who work to promote the interests of British Judaism are agents for Israel. They use the terms Israel, Jew and Zionist interchangeably in voicing their criticisms and are unable or unwilling to distinguish between them. Their perception of British Jews has become dependent on the actions of Israel herself and they believe that British Jewry unduly influences parliament through shadowy groups such as Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel to support the Israeli state. In short, there is according to a significant minority of British people, a Jewish conspiracy to control the world and all Jews are somehow in on it.

Government MUST act to ensure anti terror funding yields results

Alex Deane has posted on the extreme views being taught in Regents Park Mosque as shown in tonight’s Channel 4 Dispatches programme Undercover Mosque: The Return. The TaxPayers’ Alliance wants the Government to ensure that those responsible have their state funding eliminated until they put in place procedures to ensure the end of this hateful preaching.

British Muslims are being indoctrinated to hate Britain and its values in British Mosques. Viewers will witness preachers in London’s Regents Park Mosque urge worshippers to murder gays and ex-Muslims and to hate non-Muslim Britons. Eighteen months ago, Dispatches original programme Undercover Mosque showed preachers praising the murderers of British troops and asking their followers to “live like a state within a state, until you take over”. The Government must act now to stop funding the groups mentioned in the report because they have clearly failed to tackle extremism.

Taxpayers provide significant financial assistance to British Muslim bodies. In 2005 the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) received £50,000 from the Home Office. In 2006 the MCB was awarded £300,000 by the Department for International Development. The Government’s Pathfinder Against Violent Extremism scheme, launched in 2007, is distributing £70 million to Muslim community groups. We need to ensure that none of this money goes to extremist groups or groups which fail to combat the extremists in their midst and that this expenditure yields clear positive results such as greater Muslim cooperation with the police or more moderate preaching in Britain’s mosques.

Monday morning joke

A joke to brighten up Monday morning...

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam going into Central London. Nothing is moving north or south. Suddenly a man knocks on his window. The driver rolls down his window and asks, 'What Happened, what's the hold up?'

'Terrorists have kidnapped Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling. They are asking for a £10 million ransom.. Otherwise, they are going to douse them with petrol and set them on fire. We are going from car to car, taking up a collection.'

The driver asks, 'On average, how much is everyone giving?'

'About 2 litres'

(Apologies to CentreRight readers who also received it by email over the weekend - I couldn't resist sharing it with everyone else).

Harold Wilson on tax transparency

Nigel Evans' tax transparency initiative - which Tim and Sam have blogged about on ToryDiary - reminds me of an episode which Lee Rotherham and I wrote about in our first Bumper Book of Government Waste.

In 1974, Prime Minister Harold Wilson sent a memo to his ministers saying, “In the coming weeks, I want to show that as a government we are sensitive to little points which may be trivial in the context of government policy but carry a disproportionate weight in people's minds."

Among the “little points" was tax and, in particular, openness with taxpayers on how revenues were being spent. Wilson wrote to his Chancellor, Denis Healey, suggesting that taxpayers should be given a diagram showing how taxes were used. “One of the complaints which I often hear from constituents and others is that in contrast to the local rates, no one ever bothers to tell them how their taxes are spent."

He added: “I find it hard to believe that the job of putting this extra slip of paper into each envelope would bring the Inland Revenue machine to a halt." Thirty years later, we are still waiting.

Initial TPA reaction to the MPs' Expenses report

We haven't had time at The TaxPayers' Alliance to sift through all 93 pages of the 'Review of Allowances' published by the House of Commons Members Estimates Committee at 10am this morning, but we have been through all the recommendations and on our initial reading there is one glaring omission from the proposals - Transparency.

All the tough talk in the report will mean nothing if the public is denied access to the details of expenses claims. For example, the report proposes that MPs should to be banned from using taxpayers' money to buy new kitchens, televisions and other household goods for their second homes in London. Good.

It also says that there will be tighter checks on how they spend their expenses, including spot checks by the National Audit Office and a complete external audit once a Parliament. Again, good.

But nowhere in the report does it say that the recent advances in transparency, won through the hard-fought Freedom of Information battle spearheaded by Heather Brooke, should be recognised and officially adopted by the Commons.

The most recent high-profile abuses of the expenses system show that the Fees Office cannot be trusted to monitor expenses and enforce the rules on our behalf. Any member of the public should be allowed to sift through their MP's receipts (or any other MP's receipts) to ensure that their tax money is being carefully spent.

If the system continues to operate behind closed doors, away from the gaze of taxpayers and voters, it will be all to easy for the abuses to creep back in. Without this guarantee, the majority of MPs who are honest and hardworking will continue to be tarred with the same brush as the small minority who have, to be frank, acted like crooks.

The last two election campaigns were a case study in how not to make the case for lower taxes

Daniel Finkelstein won’t know this, but I sometimes tell the key supporters of the TaxPayers’ Alliance that our mission will be complete when the Comment Editor of The Times writes an article in favour of lower taxes. Judging from the sub-headline of his latest piece – “those calling for tax cuts are out of their mind” – we still have a considerable amount of work to do.

Our central disagreement is over our respective diagnoses of the Conservative Party’s recent defeats. Daniel argues that the Conservatives lost the past two elections on the basis of tax cuts and will lose a third should they pursue a similar strategy again.

I half agree with him on this. If they repeat an indecisive approach to tax (think Michael Portillo’s slow reaction to the Fuel Tax protests in 2000, or Oliver Letwin’s “believe me, no tax cuts” speech in 2004), they don’t deserve to win. Or if they unveil plans for tax cuts a matter of weeks before election day, as Letwin did in 2005, or during the election campaign itself, as he did before going into hiding in 2001, then it is certainly true that the electorate won’t take them seriously.

Anti-politician strategy the right way forward

It's become a bit of a cliche to describe a blog entry as "must read", but in the case of Guido's post on David Cameron's strategy, it's true. Readers who have followed the TPA's polling will notice some familiar themes - taking a stand against Westminster, running from 'outside the beltway'. Take a look at slide 48 from our September 2006 conference poll. If this turns out to be part of a longer term strategy, the Conservatives are spot on.

Those interested in the evolution of this debate should also read this paper by Dominic Cummings and James Frayne who wrote it while running the successful No campaign in the referendum on the North East Regional Assembly in November 2004 - the only electoral test so far of a political campaign using the "anti-politician" message. Dominic Cummings is now an adviser to Michael Gove MP.

Thoughts on George Osborne's speech

George Osborne's speech this morning on The Principles of Tax Reform is well worth reading. The pledge to create an Office of Tax Simplification, originally proposed by Lord Forsyth's Tax Reform Commission, is welcome and the overall desire to stop taxation by stealth and on the hoof changes to the tax system is undoubtely desirable.

Road hauliers will welcome Mr Osborne's response to a question from my colleague Matt Sinclair, who asked whether he would accept that the Pigovian case for green taxes implied an optimum level of green taxes, at the social cost, rather than unlimited increases in green taxation and whether he would accept that some green taxes are therefore already set too high. The Shadow Chancellor appeared to accept the logic of this point on fuel duty – arguing that the current Government’s use of it as a revenue raising measure was harming confidence in the case for green taxes. The Freight Transport Association launched a new campaign on fuel duty this very week, so if the Conservatives respond to this mounting concern it will be great news.