Tag Archives: FOI

Opinion: Taxpayer foots £6.7m NO 2 AV leaflet bill

By Stuart Bonar | Published 21st June 2011 - 10:26 am

We all remember the supposed concern the NO 2 AV campaign had for the British taxpayer. You’ll remember – who could forget? – their claim that the Alternative Vote would cost £250m, and that this’ll kill babies and soldiers. You might also remember David Blunkett’s polling-day admission that that was all nonsense, but, hey, all’s fair in love, war and politics, and I guess they were just really concerned about saving taxpayers’ money. After all, TaxPayers’ Alliance founder Matthew Elliott headed up their campaign.

Just to underline how much they cared about the public purse, they …

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , | 29 Comments

Opinion: Cameron’s vision for local government is bleak

By Alex Foster | Published 9th July 2009 - 10:25 am

Last week’s Local Government Association conference was addressed on its final day by three representatives from Westminster who’d made the journey northwards to Harrogate to face the serried ranks of senior local government councillors and officers.

The Lib Dems were represented by Vince Cable MP, given an early morning slot that not everyone got to. He was warmly received by all those who were there, in any case, which may represent that it was just the Lib Dem LGA group present. His speech covered his history as a councillor himself in the early 1970s when local government …

Continue reading »
Posted in Local government, Op-eds | Also tagged , , , , , , , | 5 Comments