TPA – Still Sponging Off The Taxpayer

Although they remain implacably opposed to telling anyone who pays the bills, the dubiously talented convocation of non-job holders at the so-called Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA) are clearly in receipt of more money than they need, as word has gone out that they are expanding. That means more staff, and not mere interns: they’re talking “competitive” remuneration here.

More guff from Tufton Street

So one might think this new injection of dosh would mean the TPA could afford to stump up for its job adverts to be placed in publications and on websites where one has to pay for such things. And, given the impeccably free market and libertarian credentials of this body, they would have no truck with anything funded from the public purse. After all, they surely have things called principles.

Sadly, as with so much that surrounds the right-leaning and libertarian fringe, that thought would be badly misplaced: the TPA is as ready to take a freebie and sponge off the taxpayer as anyone else given the opportunity, despite constantly railing against those who do just that. So their job adverts, to no surprise at all, have been placed on the House Of Commons W4MP site.

Yes, the TPA is once again blatantly sponging off the taxpayer. Moreover, W4MP is primarily about jobs in and around Parliament: the TPA is not thus connected and is merely an Astroturf lobby group. It should not be allowed near that site, and any attempt at further sponging should be directed towards somewhere that charges the full market rate, in line with the TPA’s free market principles.

And it doesn’t get any better with the advert wording: “The TPA is Britain’s independent grassroots campaign for better services and lower taxes” it tells proudly. But it has no grassroots: less than one tenth of one per cent of taxpayers subscribe to its cause. And if it was interested in better services, it would engage with the organisations it complains about, rather than engaging in FoI fishing expeditions.

Candidates are required to have “a sympathy for the objectives of the TPA”, although those objectives are not spelled out in any detail. But help is at hand: I can assist with two of those objectives, having followed the activities of the group for a while now. And one of those is cutting the state back to the kind of size it had immediately before World War 2, which means one thing.

And that is the absence of the NHS. Yes, the TPA wants big tax cuts, but these would benefit their rich backers most, and for ordinary folk, would be eaten up with health insurance premia. On top of that, you can forget free education for all up to age 18. I’m sure that all job applicants will have these objectives spelled out to them, along with at least one good reason for sponging off the W4MP site.

Or perhaps they’ll keep schtum. What a bunch of steaming hypocrites.