UK Hands Taxpayer Money to Anti-Motorist Groups
Tim Fox
UK Hands Taxpayer Money to Anti-Motorist Groups
Taxpayers Alliance report documents $1.5 million in taxpayer money
handed to anti-motoring groups that support government policies.
Special interest groups devoted to undermining the rights of motorists
have received millions in grants from the UK government. These
organizations promote raising taxes on drivers, increasing the number
of speed cameras and boosting subsidies for inefficient modes of
transportation. A report issued earlier this month by The Taxpayers'
Alliance (TPA) used freedom of information requests and government
reports to calculate the amount of public money that lobbying groups
receive.
"The TPA report goes a long way towards explaining why the debates on
the issues of road transport and climate policy are so one-sided,"
said Paul Biggs, spokesman for the Association of British Drivers
(ABD). "Democracy is being bypassed in order to further agendas that
wouldn't survive objective scrutiny or a proper democratic process.
The use of taxpayers' money to fund political viewpoints that they may
seriously not agree with is a national scandal that needs to be
urgently addressed."
The Campaign for Better Transport, also known as Transport 2000,
strongly advocates the use of speed bumps, the lowering of speed
limits to 20 MPH, narrowing of roads, speed cameras, permanent road
closures and many other policies designed to make driving less
attractive. The group was recently quoted in the Daily Mail newspaper
supporting a government proposal to impose a �350 (US $580) annual tax
on drivers who park at work. For its work supporting government
proposals, the group received �417,210 (US $691,405) in public funds
in 2007. In addition to the public money, another twenty percent of
the group's funds come from bus and train companies, according to a
2006 Daily Telegraph article.
Environmental groups like Living Streets, Friends of the Earth and The
Green Alliance took �440,000 (US $727,000) in public funds. Brake is
the most prominent of professional speed camera advocacy groups in the
UK. The organization received �70,991 (US $117,373) in government
grants and �285,718 (US $472,495) from corporate donors. Brake refuses
to identify these donors.
The Taxpayers' Alliance believes using public money to support such
groups has a chilling effect on free speech.
"This kind of spending massively distorts the British political
debate," the TPA report stated. "When public policy and debate is
driven by campaigns that represent the priorities of politicians and
bureaucrats instead of the public, the views of ordinary people are
increasingly pushed to the sidelines. Taxpayer funded lobbying and
campaigning needs to end."
A copy of the TPA report is available in a 750k PDF file at:
http://www.thenewspaper.com/rlc/docs/2009/uk-taxfunding.pdf
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This kind of thing is exactly the reason why we're being threatened
with uk.rec.cycling.censored. It's far too close to the bone and just
the kind of truth that the utterly mean-spirited, lying, scheming
car-haters don't want to get out. Thankfully, though, as the article
implies, actual members of the public who support the demented,
spiteful anti-car policies of the organisations mentioned and the
government are few and far between, at least outside hives of
anti-motorist activity like URC.
Now it's just a question of working out how to stop public taxes being
spent on extremist, nutjob organisations which promote policies and
points of views which work directly against, and are bitterly opposed
by, the reasonable, decent and hardworking majority. It's time that
we had proper democratic policies instead of being told what's good
for us by dishonest car-hating morons who don't represent the common
man in any way, shape or form. In a democracy, it should be a given
that policy is decided by the reasonable majority rather than deranged
car-hating weirdos who are so small in number that they simply
shouldn't be listened to at all, no matter how loudly they scream, no
matter how many lies they tell, and no matter how much they pretend to
care about people's "safety".
Oh, and I wonder who the "corporate donors" to the likes of Brake are.
Speed camera manufacturers and others who make huge amounts of money
out of cameras, perhaps (why else would Brake refuse to identify
them)? Not that Brake and their sponsors care about anything but road
safety. Definitely not.
It would be so refreshing if, just for once, one of the numerous
car-haters on here who pretends not to hate cars would just admit the
bleedin' obvious and say "I know perfectly well that speed cameras,
speed humps, road closures etc are designed to make driving less
attractive, and that's exactly why I support them; safety is nothing
to do with it". Why does a hatred of motorists so often appear to go
hand in hand with such an incredible reluctance to tell the truth? Not
only do we have the lying nutcases on the likes of URC, but can anyone
think of a single anti-car organisation that doesn't regularly indulge
in thoroughly disingenuous tactics? Thought not.
If you're thinking of complaining that this post is "off-topic",
perhaps you could explain why you only ever complain about
motoring-related posts being "off-topic" when they're in favour of,
rather than against, motorists. Of course, you can't explain that,
because you're not really bothered about posts being off-topic, you
just don't like people expressing points of view that are contrary to
yours, and your "off-topic" nonsense is just a pathetic excuse to
advocate yet more censorship.
Keitht
> http://www.thenewspaper.com/news/28/2868.asp
>
Or you could go to:
http://www.taxpayersalliance.org/
--
Come to Dave & Boris - your cycle security experts.