Cancun/MPs Expenses

The Taxpayers Alliance have produced a new video to coincide with Cancun. Some facts:

"A total of £10.1 million was given to a range of environmental groups by the UK Government and the European Union in 2009-10.
The total includes £2.5 million from various UK local councils, departments and quangos.
It also includes £7.6 million in European Commission grants to environmental NGOs, including a total of £825,888 in 2009-10 to the European Environmental Bureau.
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office made the largest UK payment in 2009-10 of £342,929 to WWF UK.
Hackney council made the largest payment in 2009-10 from a UK council at £141,246 to Global Action Plan.
Big Lottery Fund made the largest payment from a UK quango at £73,994, again to Global Action Plan."

And if you would like to know whether - and how much - your council is funding environmentalism campaigns, then click here.

And that is not all. With the publication by IPSA of MPs expenses, if you go to the IPSA website, enter your MP, the category of their expenses, you can see the detailed costs. The TPA say that whilst they have found no trace of claims for duck ponds and moat cleaning, there are still questions to be asked. They quote the example of Gordon Brown who spent £2,532 on travel between July and September but was only seen in the House of Commons once in that period.


Update: the Guardian have excelled themselves with this webpage.