TPA – Non-Job Holder Can’t Use Google

The devil may make work for idle hands, but not, it seems, those of Andrew Allison, the “National Grassroots Coordinator” of the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), holder of the TPA’s most obvious sinecure, given that the organisation has less grassroots than the People’s Front of Judaea. Allison believes that he has discovered a “non-job” – that’s in addition to his own.

The targeted organisation is the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), a name which Allison fails to quote correctly (he uses Office in place of Organisation). He tells that they are advertising for a new Chief Executive, but that “I can’t tell you who the last Chief Executive was!”, indicating his inability to do a few minutes’ Googling: there is an acting CEO and his name is James Cross.

Allison then decides that the MMO duplicates the work of the EU in Brussels, although he is unable to show where this occurs, merely telling there “must be some duplication of work”. That, Andrew, is what you are being paid to figure out. Indulging in hyperbole (“we have an army of bureaucrats in Brussels regulating the fishing industry”, and describing a CEO’s job as a “prize”) and nudge-nudgery will not do.

If Allison could have been bothered, he would be able to find out that the EU agrees – among all its member states, including the UK – the Common Fisheries Policy, which is up for significant amendment right now, and fishing quotas. The regulation and policing of the policy and quotas is down to those member states. Allison is starting to believe the TPA’s anti-EU propaganda.

The MMO also looks after the UK’s inshore fisheries – not that the TPA want to bother themselves with such trivia – and generally works towards sustainability, which means ensuring that fishing grounds are not over-exploited and that there is something there for the future. The TPA would no doubt prefer there to be no regulation, but then, that could mean there being no fish.

All in all, Allison’s attack on the MMO shows that he either can’t be bothered doing the most basic of research, or that being knowledgeable about Government is not what the TPA is about. Either way, it’s not good enough.