TPA – Looking For Leverage

Those who look in on the website of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), the grassroots equivalent of the Peoples’ Front of Judaea, may have noticed that the output of knocking copy aimed at Government – any Government – has fallen recently, although there are still regular attempts to pretend knowledge of jobs merely from job titles.

Get out more on the second floor!

But the less than stellar array of non-job holders has not been idle: at least two of them have decided to come down from their lofty perch at 55 Tufton Street and author content for the Huffington Post UK. Given that I have also featured at that site, I can have no complaint: one cannot object to free dissenting speech. But the TPA should not need to be there.

After all, although they are an Astroturf lobby group and no more, the TPA gets its copy in the papers – well, the Express, Mail, Telegraph and Sun at least – and its talking heads, well presented and on-message, are always willing to appear on camera, at least when the opportunity is in central London. They would appear not to need the HuffPost.

Moreover, the two who have thus far turned up, Matthew Sinclair and Emma Boon, have received a less than rapturous reception, garnering many comments, with most of those commenting hostile. In Sinclair’s case, this is hardly surprising, given his aggressive stance towards teachers, every one of whom makes a more significant contribution to public life than he will ever do.

So why are they doing it? Ah well. The TPA’s own website is not generating as much traffic and feedback as they would like, and even there a number of commenters are given to demonstrating their resistance to the product on offer. So Sinclair and Boon have ventured out onto the HuffPost to try and “leverage” it to their advantage. I applaud their tenacity, even if I reject much of the TPA’s quack doctory.

For readers who have thus far missed the duo, and may not know what they are missing, I would like to offer the TPA my assistance in bringing a little light to shine on their oeuvre. I commend to HuffPost readers the TPA’s attempt to abolish the minimum wage, a mainly fabricated report on the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), and even an attack on environmental groups.

And for those whose appetite has been merely whetted by this information, I also commend the TPA’s less than accurate attack on Network Rail, their campaign of misinformation on speed cameras, and their unremitting barrage against the HS2 project, which was the subject of Emma Boon’s post.

Hopefully, HuffPost UK readers will soon be more knowledgeable on the TPA.