Tax Payers' Alliance in Nottingham

Photo courtesy of the Nottingham Post.

One of my favourite think tanks, the Tax Payers' Alliance, visited Nottingham on Sunday as part of their 'War on Waste' tour of Great Britain. The tour plans to travel the whole country from Brighton to Carlisle and point out local and national government waste across the UK. The TPA is a non party political think tank rightly criticising any party that wastes money whilst in office. The TPA also invited MPs, Councillors and activists of all political persuasions to join them to promote cutting taxes and cutting waste.

The one major fact the Tax Payer's Alliance have been plugging is that £3,800 of your money is wasted every single second by politicians in this country. The TPA were obviously in Nottingham to make aware to people how much of their money has been wasted by the current Labour administration in the City Council. For example Nottingham City Council has wasted £4,450 of our money on just one Christmas Tree. I'm all for festive spirit but not to the tune of the cost of a Caribbean cruise.

Leader of Nottingham City Council, Cllr Jon Collins, is ultimately responsible for all this waste.

Then of course there was all that waste with all those deliberately political and divisive posters. Nottingham City Council thought it would be a great idea to have a website for people to complain to about Government cuts and thus launched this political attack using a poster campaign. The posters made comparison between the well dressed business men of Windsor and the ordinary folk of Nottingham to illustrate the point. This wasted £3,000 of our money (this figure of course doesn't include the loss of advertising revenues form the board, the cost of the website and administration). What a joke and waste that was 'unfair on Nottingham'.

Political waste which is most certainly 'unfair on Nottingham'.

And what do we get out of Nottingham City Council as compensation for all this waste? A 1.99% raise in council tax every year and a work place parking tax on parking at work. They really are bastions of caring for the community. It seems they are intent in making our life just that bit harder every year through mass taxation.

The Tax Payers' Alliance had a very good day in Nottingham. Andy Silvester from the TPA said to the Nottingham Post "Far too much taxpayers' money is wasted, keeping taxes high and taking precious resources away from essential services. It's time for a war on waste right across the public sector.

"It would be nothing short of immoral to saddle the next generation with our trillion-pound debt mountain. We need to strip out wasteful and unnecessary spending and start living within our means again."

Jane Hunt with the TPA in Nottingham. Photo Courtesy of the Nottingham Post.

Jane Hunt, the Conservative candidate for the General Election was also there, helping to defend tax payer value. She has said that "while I don't agree with everything that the TPA puts forward, the principles are absolutely right. We need to help individuals and small businesses in particular by keeping down taxes and cutting waste.

For Nottingham, the workplace parking tax is restricting business in the city. The tram facility will be fine once it is finished and for the areas it covers, but we need to make sure this works for Nottingham, not against it."

I thoroughly recommend backing the TPA's 'War on Waste'. Politicians spend our money and it should be done in a way that is efficient and helps citizens. Waste is a crime against the tax payer and should be stopped. I would urge you to join the TPA to help achieve this.