Receipts Please
Scrolling through the BBC News web-site, I noticed an article on how much elected representatives and their staff cost the taxpayer. Sure, it’s fair enough to report those figures. I don’t have much problem with the amount of money that is needed to ensure that democracy functions in the UK, though I’m sure there are quite a few who believe that politicians should work all hours on no pay.
What I do have a problem with is Mark Wallace of the Taxpayers’ Alliance stating that the practice of politicos giving part of their salary to their party is ”effectively state funding of political parties by the back door”. At what point did the Taxpayers’ Alliance gain the right of oversight of politician’s private and personal use of their own money?! Will they next require that MPs and Councillors are limited to Lidl or Aldi from now on to ensure that the taxpayers’ money is used most effectively? And come to think of it, what’s wrong with state funding?
The public needs to have confidence that it can oversee politicians, and dismiss them if it isn’t satisfied, but the mass hatred of politicians that we have now isn’t healthy for a democratic society. It just leads to the apathy about and avoidance of politics.
Well said. I suspect that some of those papers have an anti-democratic agenda.
As for the so-called Tax-payers Alliance please have a look at http://www.taxpayersalliance.org which is The Other Taxpayers Alliance