Just who the flip are The Taxpayers' Alliance, rent-a-quote spokespeople for whom keep appearing on British news stories? Why are their opinions regarded as being of any significance, and why are they allowed to call themselves something that is patently untrue? I am a taxpayer, and I am not their ally.
According to their own website, they are 'Britain's non-partisan, grassroots campaign for lower taxes and better government'. I may not be a political genius, but I was under the impression that a non-partisan was someone who had no allegiances to a particular party or cause, and a partisan was someone who very much did. Given that the TPA was founded by a group of disgruntled Conservatives, that its chief executive is a former Tory party researcher, and that it won a 2007 'One of Us' award from the Conservative party, this is disingenuous at best, and a downright lie at worst.
As for grassroots, this is a meaningless term that is endlessly hijacked by political groups. The women on the Dagenham car factory line formed a grassroots movement, coming as they did from a background of non-representation and political inexperience, and arising naturally as a group fighting a particular issue from a position of tremendous inequality and lack of power. The founders of the TPA are nothing of this sort, being well-established politicos, and having the backing of an enormous number of powerful and wealthy financiers.
Oh, and in 2009, the Grauniad discovered that one of the directors of the TPA didn't pay any British tax at all, and didn't live in Britain, but that he lived in a farmhouse in the Loire. What could be more grassroots than that? Who else could speak for the British electorate with such authority but someone who doesn't live there and doesn't contribute anything to the public purse? But then with the current chancellor's love of tax-dodging, this should hardly be a surprise, especially now that "The Tory party has moved onto our agenda." (an agenda that was already relentlessly right wing and conservative and regressive).
So, since they don't speak for me, why do I have to hear them voicing their biased and often profoundly idiotic views so often? Could it possibly be because most of the media are owned by people with the same TPA points of view?
According to their own website, they are 'Britain's non-partisan, grassroots campaign for lower taxes and better government'. I may not be a political genius, but I was under the impression that a non-partisan was someone who had no allegiances to a particular party or cause, and a partisan was someone who very much did. Given that the TPA was founded by a group of disgruntled Conservatives, that its chief executive is a former Tory party researcher, and that it won a 2007 'One of Us' award from the Conservative party, this is disingenuous at best, and a downright lie at worst.
As for grassroots, this is a meaningless term that is endlessly hijacked by political groups. The women on the Dagenham car factory line formed a grassroots movement, coming as they did from a background of non-representation and political inexperience, and arising naturally as a group fighting a particular issue from a position of tremendous inequality and lack of power. The founders of the TPA are nothing of this sort, being well-established politicos, and having the backing of an enormous number of powerful and wealthy financiers.
Oh, and in 2009, the Grauniad discovered that one of the directors of the TPA didn't pay any British tax at all, and didn't live in Britain, but that he lived in a farmhouse in the Loire. What could be more grassroots than that? Who else could speak for the British electorate with such authority but someone who doesn't live there and doesn't contribute anything to the public purse? But then with the current chancellor's love of tax-dodging, this should hardly be a surprise, especially now that "The Tory party has moved onto our agenda." (an agenda that was already relentlessly right wing and conservative and regressive).
So, since they don't speak for me, why do I have to hear them voicing their biased and often profoundly idiotic views so often? Could it possibly be because most of the media are owned by people with the same TPA points of view?
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