Tuesday 17 March 2009

It's official: Taxpayers Alliance are conservatives

The Taxpayers Alliance are laughing off my noting they accidentally "outed" their previous double-talk about their total political neutrality by boasting to Canadian conservatives that they are leading lights in Britain's conservative movement.

They have gone for the "weasel words" defence I suggested they might try. But let's be generous and find some common ground. The new claim is that they are part of a "conservative movement" - as their Chief Exec's slide shows, they see themselves intellectual allies of the Conservative Party along with other pressure groups, retaining the right to criticise the Conservatives within that.

So let's agree to that. I take it this acknowledgement of political motivation means that they won't be repeating their claims in the media that "we don't have a party preference" or issuing denials that they are conservative, right-of-centre or right-wing, as they have in the past.

So I would surmise that supporters, opponents and media organisations looking for fair and balanced ways to describe the group could now use:


The conservative pressure group, The Taxpayers Alliance

The conservative anti-taxation campaign, The Taxpayers Alliance

The right-wing anti-taxation campaign, The Taxpayers Alliance



If any of those are inaccurate descriptions, I would welcome advice from the TPA as to which they think are not valid, and why.

Otherwise, let's call it a truce on nomenclature. And, now to substance: I would love to hear a defence of the policy of "opposing all tax rises". Could we have a clarification: in all circumstances? forever?

1 comment:

Matthew Sinclair said...

Sunder,

I've posted a response here:
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/campaign/2009/03/more-from-sunder-katwala.html

Best,
Matt