EU Membership Costs Each Briton £2,000 a Year

The Taxpayers' Alliance figures for the cost of belonging to the EU are much higher than the narrow budget contributions reported by the Treasury.

The UK pays more than £6 billion a year in direct support for the European Commission and other EU projects.

The TPA says the real cost of EU membership is actually many times that.

The group, which argues for lower Government spending, says that the true price of being an EU member comes in the cost to British businesses in complying with European regulations, the cost of Government bureaucracy to administer those rules, and other consequences of membership like food prices inflated by farm subsidies.

The European Commission has estimated that the cost of the European project is around £188 for every person in the EU.

However, according to a Matthew Elliott, the TPA chief executive, the total cost across the EU is £495 billion or £1,968 for ever man woman and child in Europe,

Mr Elliot makes his claims in a new book, The Great European Rip-Off.

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Speaker Michael Martin Took Wife on Taxpayer-Funded Trips to Hawaii and Bahamas

Over the past six years Mr Martin and his wife Mary have enjoyed a total of 16 trips to destinations including Hawaii, the Bahamas, New York and Rome.

Each of the visits was approved by a cross-party Commons committee - whose chairman is Mr Martin.

Critics described the trips as "an insult to ordinary taxpayers".

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that Mrs Martin has accompanied her husband on all but one of his 17 overseas visits since September 2002. Her travel bill alone for just 10 of the trips was £25,000.

Mrs Martin has no formal official role as the wife of the Speaker, yet the couple averaged an overseas trip once every four months to some of the most sought-after destinations in the world.

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Lawful Rebellion!

Council House Tenants Offered £30,000 Bribes to Move Out

Council tenants are being offered £30,000 bribes or cottages by the sea to vacate their homes for credit crunch victims as Britain faces a critical social housing shortage.

Millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being spent encouraging people in social housing to move to the private sector — either as home-buyers or tenants. Those in larger council homes are also being offered cash payments of up to £3,000 per bedroom if they agree to downsize to a smaller social house or apartment.

Tens of thousands of people have taken up the offers but councils plan to push schemes more aggressively in another unexpected consequence of the recession.

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Town Hall Pensions Eat Up a Quarter of YOUR Council Tax Payments

A quarter of all council tax is going to meet the soaring cost of the gold-plated pensions of town hall workers, it was revealed yesterday.

Taxpayer subsidies for the pensions of local authority staff topped £5billion last year, according to figures from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

Families paying an average council tax bill of £1,154 would have stumped up £285 to the pensions of local government workers - a cost that has more than trebled in the years since Labour came to power.

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So only pay them 3/4's of your council tax, if you pay then anything!

Councillors Can Claim £10,000 a Year And Not Even Turn up To Vote

Ministers are set on pushing ahead with plans to allow "remote" voting at council meetings, despite the Government admitting there is widespread opposition to the measures.

The Conservatives said the plans meant that councillors will be able to vote from home and still claim expenses of around £10,000 each.

The only commitment will be for the councillor to monitor the local chamber by phone or over the internet.

They would be able to vote by clicking a mouse on their home computer or over the phone.
Tory sources said the move could allow councillors to hold down a second job, or watch television, and then vote on important local issues.

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Stealth Tax On Recession Victims

Ministers were accused last night of profiteering from the soaring numbers of people facing bankruptcy after they announced huge increases in fees at debtors' courts.

Charges are to rise by up to 233 per cent for debt proceedings from next May, affecting hundreds of thousands of people who plunge into the red.

The move, which has been branded a stealth tax on those least able to pay, comes as a survey by The Independent reveals the depth of Britain's debt problem with the country now officially in the worst recession for 30 years.

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Rip off Britain at it's finest!

Unlimited Bailout For UK Banking Scam

The Treasury has formally announced a scheme to allow banks to exchange cash or shares for a Government guarantee on their "toxic" debts, transferring any losses they suffer from the banks to the taxpayer.

However, the Chancellor admitted he can't estimate how much taxpayers' money will needed in the latest bailout.

"We're doing it, because if the banking system collapsed, every single one of us, the economy would come down with it. I don't think anyone would argue you ought to let that happen," he said.

Read more Bullshit here...

Taxpayers Foot £132 Million Bill For Civil Servants With No Job To Do

The figures have emerged at the start of a year in which economists suggest one million private sector jobs could be lost.
Using a series of Parliamentary Questions, the Conservatives uncovered what they say is an "invisible army of Whitehall civil servants".
In total, 15 departments said they employed 4,634 staff - one in 100 of all civil servants - without an official job.
Calculated on the average staff cost of a civil servant, the staff would cost £132million to employ.
More than half of the staff were at HM Revenue & Customs which is employing 2,874 "pre-surplus staff". This is defined as staff "whose post or work is no longer being carried out".
The answers from other departments show that staff with nothing to do are described as members of "People Action Teams", "Redeployment Pool", "Priority Movers", "Corporate Pool" or "Career Transition Centre"

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Public Money Used to Stop Public Having a Greater Say in Policing

The Association of Police Authorities (APA) hired a private lobbying firm in its battle against Home Office plans to dramatically reform the make up of its members.

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith had proposed allowing the public to directly elect members to police authorities, but dropped the plans last month in an eleventh hour climbdown.

It has now emerged the APA used taxpayers' money to fund the services of Connect Public Affairs to offer advice and help oppose the proposals.

Tory MP Douglas Carswell, who discovered the spending, said: "It is shocking that quangos are using our money to pay lobbyists to defend and protect their own.

"They are using our money to stop us having a say in how our local communities are policed."

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Waste Watch

A council spent £25,500 on lunches for just 85 staff members taking part in a course on leadership skills.

Croydon Council paid a total of £306,000 for the workers to take part in the nine-day in-house training scheme. Of that sum, the budget for staff lunches was £300 a head – equivalent to £33.33 for each of the nine lunches. By comparison, a three-course fixed-price lunch at The Grill restaurant at London's Dorchester hotel costs £27.50.

The council would not say what food and drink was served, but Pam Parkes, divisional director of human resources, said: "I don't think it is expensive. Most people expect when they go on a course to have a tea or coffee. Tea is not cheap, we do not grow tea, we have to buy it. It does cost someone to make the lunches."

She added: "We strongly believe this is a cost-effective investment that will pay off in terms of expertise and savings in the medium to long term."

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Common Purpose course?

Councils Splurge £1m on Junkets

THE resort is best known for hosting Hollywood stars, but last March the high rollers in Cannes were of an altogether different ilk.

Among the luxury yachts in the harbour was Powder-monkey, a 100ft vessel with five en-suite cabins used by council officials from Nottingham attending Mipim, one of the world’s biggest property conventions. The 10-man delegation, led by Michael Frater, chief executive of Nottingham city council, had splashed out £20,000 of public money in order to entertain potential investors.

Moored nearby was Sunliner X, an even bigger yacht boasting four state rooms, which had been rented by delegates from Liverpool. The city council and local quangos had spent almost £150,000 on sending staff to the French Riviera, ostensibly to drum up trade over three days
.
The trips are among a long list of overseas junkets uncovered by The Sunday Times on which councils have lavished more than £1m of taxpayers’ money over the past two years.

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Town Hall Bosses Advise on Pay Rises For . . . Town Hall Bosses

TOWN HALL bosses are operating a private consultancy that has helped to increase their pay by more than 30% in four years.

Solace Enterprises, a recruitment company, is paid fees of about £20,000 by local councils to headhunt chief executives and recommend salary levels.

Its advice has contributed to burgeoning pay packets for chief executives, many of whom are now paid more than £150,000 a year. The company is wholly owned by the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (Solace), which represents town hall bosses. The company’s directors include a number of serving chief executives.

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'Spy-in-Sky' Trials Get the Go-Ahead

Ministers are pressing ahead with a £10million trial of 'spy-in-the-sky' road-pricing technology despite widespread public opposition.
Test runs will start soon in seven locations for the scheme which could result in charges of up to £1.30 a mile on the most congested roads.
Volunteer drivers will have units fitted to their cars, which will be tracked by satellite and will automatically deduct payments from a test account.

The trials are proceeding despite previous statements from the Government suggesting that it had abandoned the idea of national road pricing.

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Adults Could be Forced to Take Out Private Insurance to Cover Nursing Home Costs

Every adult could be forced to take out private insurance to cover the cost of their care in old age under plans being considered by the Government.

Taxpayers would have to pay hundreds of pounds in premiums every year while working, and would receive payouts if they later have to move into a nursing home.

The radical plan is being considered by ministers as a way to tackle the system of long-term support for the elderly in England, which is widely considered to be unfair, underfunded and too complex.

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Drivers to Have 10-year Health Checks Under Driver Licence Reforms

Drivers will have to declare every 10 years whether they are medically able to get behind the wheel, according to proposals to be set out early in the new year.

For the first time, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) will issue a series of minimum physical and mental requirements motorists must fulfil including eyesight performance and reaction times.

Tests, costing up to £80, will be offered to drivers to check whether they are fit to drive.
Anyone who chooses not to take the tests but declares themselves able to take to the roads will be committing a criminal offence if they fail to meet the established standards.

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Just another money making scheme from the rip off british government.

This will isolate the ever growing rural older population even further many of whom rely on their cars after their post offices have been shut down and the rural public transport system gets ever less frequent.

Hackney Council Hires 'Blue Badge' Fraud Spies... at £33,000 a Year

Undercover investigators on salaries of nearly £33,000 are being recruited to spy on motorists suspected of abusing disabled parking badges.
Using powers originally intended to combat terrorism and serious crime, they will undertake covert missions, making use of video and digital cameras ‘or other appropriate methods of surveillance’ to gather evidence for prosecutions.

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One Hundred MPs to Rebel Over Sale of Royal Mail

More than 100 Labour MPs are ready to defy the Government and join a guerrilla campaign against moves to sell off a stake in Royal Mail.
The backlash against the part-privatisation – with plans being drawn up for protests around the country – threatens to present Gordon Brown with his biggest rebellion of 2009.

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Labour Planning Secret Tax on 'Nice Houses'

Tax inspectors have divided England into 10,000 new "localities" with each neighbourhood ranked on the socio-economic class of its residents and environmental factors such as crime and traffic levels.

The inspectors have even purchased demographic data disclosing how many company executives, pensioners or students live in particular streets, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

This has been collated on a secret database which is being used to assess the desirability of neighbourhoods to help determine council tax bills if Labour wins power again at the next election.

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Motorists Face Fines and Three Points on Licence For Minor Accidents

Thousands of drivers who would have escaped prosecution for collisions after simply swapping insurance details will now face likely prosecution as soon as the police become involved.

An array of trivial motoring offences in addition to minor crashes are also likely to lead to action under proposals to give police powers to issue fixed penalty notices for careless driving.

They could include eating, drinking or smoking at the wheel, reading a map, tuning a radio or arguing with a passenger.

All funds raised from the on-the-spot fines will go directly to the Treasury, which already makes more than £100 million a year from speed cameras.

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Bare in mind that the government are also out to ban you using massive increases in speeding penalties of 6 points a hit!

Uk Offers Refuge To The Pin Striped Pirates

If you want to know why Britain has never completed the process of decolonisation, look at two lists side by side. One is the official register of tax havens, compiled by the OECD. The other is the list of British overseas territories and crown dependencies. Over a quarter of the world's tax havens are British property. More than half of Britain's colonial territories and dependencies are tax havens. Strip out Antarctica, the military bases and the scarcely habited rocks and atolls and, of the 11 remaining properties, only the Falkland Islands is not a recognised haven.

The obvious conclusion is that Britain retains these colonies for one purpose: to help banks, corporations and the ultra-rich to avoid tax.

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