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How much more?
For a government completely devoid of any business experience (or experience of anything beyond trade unions, the public sector, or left wing activism), they seem to be mightily familiar with clever accounting techniques. Which is why Keir Starmer has somehow been able to keep a straight face when telling the nation his plan for the Chagos islands will only set taxpayers back £3.4 billion.

Giving away our own territory and paying £3.4 billion for the privilege was already enough to get our hackles up but, a new TPA briefing note has revealed the true figure could be as high as £47 billion! ([link removed])
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While ministers quote the ‘net present value’ - essentially what they’ve calculated all of our payments to Mauritius to mean in today’s money - in cash terms the amount is wildly different with the government’s own actuaries putting the figure at £34.7 billion. The trouble is ([link removed]) , as Darwin Friend explained to GB News viewers: “The assumptions the government used to try and calculate the cost of this deal over the 100 year period have been overly generous… By using what the market expects inflation to be and long term gilt yields, for the net present value, the figure goes to £4.1 billion and in cash terms it rises to £47 billion!”

The media leapt on our findings with coverage in the Telegraph ([link removed]) , Daily Mail ([link removed]) , and Express ([link removed]) , while William Yarwood’s thoughts could be found in his op-ed ([link removed]) on the GB News website.
Our research also caught the attention of parliamentarians, with Conservative MP Sarah Bool citing our figure in the commons here ([link removed]) (jump to around 14:15) while Nigel Farage quoted our findings ([link removed]) in an interview.

In the TPA studio, Elliot Keck sat down with Robert Midgley from Friends of the British Overseas Territories ([link removed]) , diving into the history of the Chagos islands and busting some of the myths around Mauritius’ claim ([link removed]) on them.

Rounding off the coverage, Elliot joined Mike Graham ([link removed]) on Talk cutting to the heart of the issue: “The real question should be not why are we paying Mauritius £47 billion but why are Mauritius not paying us £47 billion given it’s our territory we’re giving away, not the other way round.”
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There’s no getting away from it, this deal is a humiliating surrender from our government. British taxpayers are being told to give up land and hand over £47 billion to Mauritius so that the government there can abolish income tax for 80 per cent of their citizens.

As the bill to put this ridiculous sell out from Keir ‘international law’ Starmer progresses through parliament, it’s more important than ever to make your views known. We’ve made it as easy as possible to make your voice heard with our tool for writing to your MP. If you’ve not done so already, click here to tell your MP to oppose the Chagos surrender! ([link removed])
From the Reform UK Conference in Birmingham
For this week’s episode of a nation of taxpayers, podcast host Duncan Barkes and William talk to those who attended the Reform UK Conference in Birmingham.
This episode features contributions from Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former Conservative MP and Cabinet member, Councillor Saffron Sims-Brydon who sits as a Reform councillor on Durham County Council, Russell Quirk who is a candidate in the forthcoming Hutton South by-election for a seat on Brentwood Borough Council in Essex, and contributions from other delegates and Reform UK members.

Give the latest episode of a nation of taxpayers a listen on Apple Podcasts ([link removed]) , Spotify ([link removed]) , and YouTube ([link removed]) .
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Khan’s capitulation
After unions in the capital spent the week making the lives of commuters and Londoners a misery, you might think the city’s mayor would be calling out the disruption and those behind it. Instead, Sadiq Khan is preparing to cave and dish out a ‘no strings’ pay rise ([link removed]) . You couldn’t make it up.

As someone who endured the chaos, Joanna Marchong was perfectly placed to pop up on GB News to give her views on the striking workers and their demands for a 32 hour working week ([link removed]) : “We need to get more people in so that we don’t need to rely on these people striking who are just quite lazy.”
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Anne Strickland, the TPA’s newest researcher, took to the pages of City A.M. making the case for automating the underground ([link removed]) : “Automation could eliminate driver strikes entirely. Beyond labour disputes, automated systems provide enhanced safety, improved customer service, operational flexibility and reduced environmental impact. Crucially for taxpayers, automation delivers economic balance: better services while controlling costs that spiral with every union negotiation.” Take a read of Anne’s piece in full here ([link removed]) .
The idle civil service
Regular readers will know that we’re not generally singing the praises of civil servants. As Joanna’s investigations have shown ([link removed]) , when they’re not working from home or off sick, they can often be found doing things like knitting and ‘Menopause Yoga’ during working hours.
It also looks like a number of them are fond of the website Reddit. Our eyes were caught by a report from the Telegraph, highlighting a thread on the forum filled with posts supposedly from civil servants bemoaning their lack of work and endless diversity training sessions ([link removed]) . While we weren’t shocked by the stories, the honesty from some of these mandarins was striking.

Anne was spot on when she told Telegraph readers: “These stories prove just how broken the civil service system is. Taxpayers expect civil servants to be delivering for the public, not sitting idle in a culture where effort is punished and mediocrity rewarded. It’s clear that this bloated bureaucracy needs slashing, and incentive structures need changing because currently money is being squandered on staff with nothing to do.” Hear, hear!
The public won’t reward government overspending – just ask Ed Miliband
With new polling published yesterday showing that cutting spending is twice as popular with the public than increasing taxes ([link removed]) , John O’Connell’s op-ed in City A.M. from Wednesday looks to have hit the nail on the head.

John used his latest article to argue that uncontrolled public spending, as we’re experiencing with this government and the calamitous Rachel Reeves in the treasury, is rarely rewarded by the tax-paying public who pick up the tab ([link removed]) .
John writes: “Take the employers’ national insurance increase from last year’s disaster Budget. We were told that businesses would pick up the slack. But businesses are nothing more than filings at Companies House – they can no more pay taxes than your toaster can pay the electricity bill. People pay taxes. So instead, workers received no pay rises (or lower than they could have been); prices for consumers went up; and returns to capital reduced (thereby disincentivising investment and job creation)... Some argue there are no current political rewards for reducing public spending. But thinking back to 2015, it wasn’t Ed Miliband’s Labour who won the election – it was the party offering more spending restraint. Perhaps the British public are more perceptive than political strategists give them credit for.”

Have a read of John’s op-ed in full here ([link removed])
The Lifetime ISA is failing taxpayers and first-time buyers
In this week’s blog ([link removed]) , Jonathan Eida takes a dive into the Lifetime ISA (LISA) and explores whether it’s really delivering for savers and taxpayers. A George Osborne innovation from 2016, the LISA rewards savers with a 25 per cent top up to their deposits, capped at an annual bonus of £1,000 and is designed to support saving for a first home or retirement.
While this may sound fine, as Jonathan writes: “The LISA is increasingly seen as an outdated solution to the broader problem of housing access. If the government is genuinely committed to helping first-time buyers, then efforts must go beyond savings products and address the structural issues on the supply side of the housing market. This includes reforming planning laws to allow for more building and offering stronger incentives to developers, such as easing tax burdens, so that housing supply can begin to meet growing demand.”
Click to read more ([link removed])
War on Waste
While some civil servants may be complaining of a lack of work, others in the Cabinet Office are finding creative ways to fill their time.

Twenty four staff networks are being run for Cabinet Office employees with the chair of each network able to dedicate 10 per cent of their working time to running them. ([link removed]) The cost of ‘diversity’ networks has already hit £36,000 and shows no sign of stopping.

Time for ministers to crack down on this pointless nonsense and get Whitehall penpushers focussed on the jobs taxpayers pay them for.

Benjamin Elks
Grassroots Development Manager

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