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Petersfield
Hampshire
GU32 2EW
UK

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Press releases

Press Release

Tuesday 25 September 2007

The Bumper Book of Government Waste 2008

Harriman House

Â£101 billion of government waste - paid for by you

Back for a second time, fully updated, and revealing even more shocking figures. This month Harriman House release a brand new expose of the extent to which British taxpayersâ€™ money is being mis-spent. And the bad news is, itâ€™s getting worse.

The first edition of this controversial book caused a media stir in February 2006. Depressingly, the figure of government waste is even higher this time - Â£101 billion. Matthew Elliott and Lee Rotherham have spent the last year researching and collating their figures, and were shocked by the grand total. Lee comments:

â€œItâ€™s an astronomical sum, enough to give the Bill Gates of the world the jitters. Every household in Britain is having four thousand pounds taken from it every year in tax only to see it go up in smoke. Itâ€™s a scandalous state of affairs, and one for which ministers, senior civil servants â€“ and their management consultants â€“ are generously rewarded.â€

What could be done with Â£101 billion? Well, you could for example, paper the entire East Midlands and London with Â£5 notes, and still have a few billion left over to build a giant silver-plated crane from which to admire your handiwork. Or even convert the Â£101 billion into one penny coins, pile them on top of each other, and reach the moon and back five times.

Here are just a few examples of where all of that money has gone:

â€¢ Â£3 million by tax inspectors at HM Revenue and Customs on flights, including Â£2.1 million on flights to Scotland
â€¢ Â£280,000 on a conference addressed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown on value for money in the public services
â€¢ Â£250,000 by Hampshire Council fixing kerbs that were 2mm too high
â€¢ Â£100,000 to assess whether the Â£400,000 spent on modern art for seven mental hospitals was value for money
â€¢ Â£5,731 hirin

Ends

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

Matthew Elliott is co-founder and Chief Executive of The TaxPayers' Alliance, an independent grassroots campaign launched in 2004 to represent taxpayers in the corridors of power and to fight for lower taxes.

Lee Rotherham is by background a linguist and historian. His Mediaeval Occitan was just one of several languages that proved to be absolutely useless when he acted as an advisor on the Convention that drafted the thoroughly despicable EU Constitution. He has advised three successive Shadow Foreign Secretaries, though the turnover wasn't his fault.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

More details can be found online at: www.harriman-house.com/governmentwaste

For further information on this book or its author, please contact Helen McCusker in the PR department at Harriman House:

Tel: +44 (0)1730 233885
Email: pr@harriman-house.com

Harriman House Ltd, 3A Penns Road, Petersfield, Hampshire, GU32 2EW

The Bumper Book of Government Waste 2008

The Bumper Book of Government Waste 2008
Brown's Squandered Billions
By Matthew Elliott, Lee Rotherham

Published: 5th October 2007

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Hampshire
GU32 2EW