The following information comes from one of the creators of the false economy website:
Clifford Singer helped create the False Economy website that will challenge the government’s case for cuts. Here he explains the need to challenge the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s media dominance.
During the summer of 2010, the TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) released a report on speed cameras which appeared to show the introduction of cameras in the early 1990s had made roads more dangerous than they would have been otherwise. Leaving aside the mystery of why speed cameras have joined the TPA’s pantheon of villains, along with the more predictable ‘benefit scroungers’ and trade unionists, the report had several characteristics typical of a TPA publication. It came with a serious-looking appendix that explained its seemingly impartial methodology, it gained lots of media coverage and it had political influence – one month later many councils began switching off their speed cameras following road safety budget cuts.
It was typical in one other way too: it was complete nonsense. While the mainstream media was content to accept the report at face value, some less credulous bloggers pointed out that according to the TPA’s projections, in the absence of speed cameras accident deaths would have fallen to zero by 2013, and then continued into negative numbers after that. If it wasn’t for those automated yellow boxes of evil, we would be enjoying the spectacle of the dead being resurrected within the next three years.
On its website, the TPA states: “We’re not a think-tank. We’re a do-tank”.
Pseudo-analysis such as its speed camera report certainly bears out the first part of that statement. But that didn’t stop readers of the influential ConservativeHome website naming the TPA as their favourite think-tank. The TPA has also boasted – through ConservativeHome – of the large number of its policies now adopted by the coalition.
Softening up electorate for cuts
Before the 2010 General Election, the TPA played an important role in softening up public antipathy towards public spending cuts. In September 2009 the TPA drew up, with the Institute of Directors, plans for an annual £50 billion a year of public spending cuts.
The alliance, which launched seven years ago, describes itself as a ‘grassroots alliance’ of ‘ordinary taxpayers’ despite an academic advisory council of Thatcherite acolytes like Patrick Minford and Ruth Lea.
The most enthusiastic coverage comes from Tory tabloids such as the Daily Mail and Express. But it also gets airtime from the BBC and other broadcasters – who should know better.
It is important to challenge the TPA’s media dominance. The alliance is particularly successful at packaging stories for cash-strapped local and regional media. Of course it helps to have £1 million a year behind you – but the point is that we need to make the case for public services.
Need for transparency in all sectors
The TPA has successfully argued for transparency and accountability in the public sector. Rather than arguing against this, we should be arguing for the same rules to apply to the private sector.
The TPA’s concern with transparency deserts it when it comes to its own finances. Its last full accounts, for 2006, record an income of £130,000 – hardly enough to sustain its current 10 full-time staff and offices in London and Birmingham. Since then, it has published ‘abbreviated’ accounts, meaning income and expenditure are withheld, although the Guardian reported its income in 2009 was £1 million. Donors are kept secret.
One source of TPA funding has been the shadowy Midlands Industrial Council. The MIC was founded in 1946 as a pressure group to fight the Attlee government’s nationalisation plans and to champion free enterprise. It has donated about £3 million to the Conservative Party since 2001, much of it targeted at marginal parliamentary seats in the Midlands.
Why won’t the TPA open its books? As it told MPs who tried to prevent their expenses being published: “If you have nothing to hide then you’ve got nothing to fear.”
