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- Cost of translation is £70,000 2009/05/27
Whether a story concerns political corruption, political correctness, contentious public spending, or simply statistics vaguely related to public life, it seems no story is complete without a contribution from the TPA. But who are these people, and how have they gained this hold over Britain's news media?
Their name may bring to mind middle-aged colonels writing to the Daily Telegraph protesting about bin collections, or the Ratepayers' Parties of past days (Ken Barlow was nearly a candidate once) but the TPA combine right-wing libertarian policies with slick modern PR techniques, and are willing to openly discuss their media manipulations. They are less willing to reveal their sources of income - beyond mentioning a combination of corporate and individual funding - or to acknowledge that there is a rival organisation, The Other Taxpayers' Alliance, with a similar URL but rather different beliefs.
In just five years, TaxPayers' Alliance membership has grown to nearly 20 000, according to its own figures. It was founded in 2004 by former Conservatives who objected to the party's insistence on matching Labour's spending plans, and demanded tax cuts, particularly on inheritance tax and for business. They have also advocated a controversial flat-rate income tax. Although they claim to be non-partisan, all three founders have close links to the Conservative Party.
Matthew Elliott (the chief executive) worked as a researcher for Conservative MPs and MEPs; he received the Conservative Way Forward "One of us" prize from William Hague in 2007 and the ConservativeHome "One to Watch" award in 2006. He blogs for website ConservativeHome and is also a keen admirer of Ayn Rand and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Andrew Allum (now chairman) was a Conservative councillor in Westminster from 1998-2002 and earlier had led the student Conservative group at Imperial College.
Florence Heath also led student conservatives at Imperial College and the European Young Conservatives.
The influence of Ayn Rand can be seen in the TPA's celebration of the brave entrepreneur. They concentrate on abolishing taxes on the wealthy rather than on the poor, focusing their attacks on business taxation and inheritance taxes rather than VAT (although they acknowledge that VAT is regressive and is unfair on the poor). They claim that inheritance tax means that fewer people can invest their inherited wealth in starting businesses. (TPA blog)
They justify this focus because "Business tax reduces the amount of investment in a country which creates huge harms not captured by the amount it raises in revenue." (Source: Conservative Home) Or as report co-author Julie Meyer puts it, entrepreneurship is "the 'goose' that lays the 'golden eggs' for society". None of the TaxPayers' Alliance's founders have experience running their own business.
Journalist Nick Davies described in Flat Earth News two phenomena which relate to the rise of the Alliance: the desire of the media for some notion of balance which means every story requires opposing viewpoints; and how journalists are often too busy to do actual investigative reporting, instead depending on press releases and stories presented to them by lobbyists, PR companies, campaigning groups, and other organisations.
Another of Elliott's favourite books is Death by a Thousand Cuts, by Michael J Graetz and Ian Shapiro, which describes the American campaign against inheritance tax. This book shows techniques that campaigners of all political positions can use to influence the media and get their message across, even if they are taking a highly unpopular position such as defending the interests of the super-rich. Although politics sometimes seems in the control of wealthy elites with a weak media unable to control them, if you follow Graetz and Shapiro's advice, it has never been easier to get your message to the public.
The organisation has revealed its methods in interviews with the BBC and the Independent. According to the BBC:
Mr Elliott freely admits that the Taxpayers' Alliance message - that the state has become bloated and wasteful and that Britons are paying too much tax - is essentially the same as any number of other right wing think tanks and pressure groups. The difference, he argues, is in the way it is packaged and sold to the media.Much of their research depends on requesting public authorities to provide them with information via the Freedom of Information Act, but they do not seem to consider the cost of these requests as a waste of taxpayers' money.
It's a simple technique: email the BBC a succession of news stories complete with quotes that they can use. This saves the journalist from having to phone up actual politicians or public figures to ask for opinions, making the whole journalism process much easier. By offering pre-packaged stories to the press the TPA is able to get their viewpoint on the front pages. Elliott in the Independent:
What we've tried to do since 2004 is understand how the media works, so we've tried to give news stories to journalists on a plate.Elliott to the BBC:
The impression I get is that what the media like now is to have spokesmen representing groups in society and we have filled a niche in terms of speaking on behalf of tax payers in a credible and professional wayThere is something postmodern about an organisation that reveals it is manipulating you, yet continues to apply its methods, often successfully. Perhaps there is also some postmodern post-irony in the way the BBC continues to be manipulated even after publishing an article acknowledging how it is being manipulated.
However they may not be the only people fighting for justice on behalf of Britain's taxpayers. "Now you have a choice ... of TaxPayers' Alliance". There is another Taxpayers Association. The Other Taxpayers Alliance was formed in reaction to Elliott, Allum, and Heath's group. They even offer journalists an automatic TaxPayers' Alliance fake quote generator which is remarkably hard to distinguish from the real thing.
They say of their enemies in the original TPA
it isn't an alliance of ordinary taxpayers at all. It is an alliance of right-wing ideologues. Its academic advisory council is a who's who of the proponents of discredited Thatcherite policies: Eamonn Butler and Marsden Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute, academics Patrick Minford and Kenneth Minogue, Margaret Thatcher's former economic advisor Sir Alan Walters, and others such as ex-Institute of Directors policy head Ruth Lea.They also question its funding - the original TPA is reticent about where its money comes from, and they wonder how it is possible to pay for 10 staff and two offices on a declared 2006 income of £130,000; in contrast, centre-left thinktank Compass publishes detailed accounts of who gives it money and where the money goes.
Not everything the TPA says is wrong. Who could disagree with its commitment to "criticise all examples of wasteful and unnecessary spending", or to putting 2012 London Olympic spending under scrutiny? But the Alliance's concern for better public spending is a stepping stone to its desire for less public spending. And far from being a voice for "ordinary" taxpayers, its policies – opposing all tax rises (what, for everyone, in any circumstance?) and backing a flat rather than progressive tax – will increase inequality and shift wealth from poor to rich.
Past sources of funding for the Original TPA included the Midlands Industrial Council, a grouping of industrialists who the Times described in 2006 as "one of the Conservatives' most important financial backers". The paper also described how the MIC was used to channel funds to the Conservative Party without revealing the identity of donors (in 2008 the Party was cleared of violating electoral law over this arrangement). The Other TPA feel the Original TPA's secrecy about its funding is inconsistent with its commitment to probity and openness.
Perhaps soon the BBC will have to quote both taxpayers alliances in every news story.
ADDITIONAL NOTE: The Guardian reported on 10 Oct 2009 that another of the TPA's directors, Alexander Heath, lives in France and has not paid British tax for several years.
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