Taxpayers' Alliance: 327 public bodies paying Stonewall over £1 million each year

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

www.taxpayersalliance.com/327_public_bodies_paying_stonewall_over_1_million_each_year

(Has also been picked up by various media)

A TaxPayers’ Alliance (TPA) investigation has found a total of 327 public bodies were paying into Stonewall's Diversity Champions scheme. Between 2018-19 and 2020-21, this saw Stonewall receive over £3 million of taxpayers’ money.

The TaxPayers’ Alliance is calling for an end to the practice of taxpayer-funded lobbying, so public money is not used to distort political decision making by advancing policy positions taxpayers may seriously disagree with.

I've not read the report yet, but that's a couple of excerpts from the media summary.

Seriously. HS2 paid £29,441?!

No bloody wonder that this white elephant is so much over budget already.

The Welsh Government refused to support Plaid Cymru to give children free school meals to children but spent a hell of a lot of money to become Stonewall Diversity Champions. I thought it was £2,500 per year as per the Welsh Government website but apparently it is a lot more. See MerchedCymru.

The Taxpayers Alliance are a Tory front, and have come out with this sort of drivel frequently.

[quote Needmoresleep]Also in the Spectator

www.spectator.co.uk/article/stonewall-and-the-problem-with-taxpayer-funded-campaigning[/quote]
That piece is good:

"But when an organisation is receiving almost three quarters of its grants from the very policymakers it’s trying to influence – with all the resources, legitimacy and access that provides – something is going wrong.

Though this situation is far from unique, it is totally unacceptable. As we’ve pointed out before – with other organisations like the Runnymede Trust, New Economics Foundation and Bright Blue – the government practice of publicly funding campaigning organisations is deeply damaging to democracy. It distorts decision-making in favour of the interests and ideological preoccupations of a narrow political elite. It slows adjustments in the direction of policy in reaction to new evidence or circumstances. It increases political apathy among the public. And perhaps most unethically of all, taxpayers are forced to help groups with which they may seriously disagree."

All that money spent to promote the ideological belief system of less than 1% of the population that could've been spent feeding children, helping victims of domestic violence escape, more accessibility for the disabled, youth clubs, children's mental health services etc etc...

@riceuten

The Taxpayers Alliance are a Tory front, and have come out with this sort of drivel frequently.

Do you have data that brings the reported expenditure into question?

I'd be pleased if you'd post it because evidence deserves scrutiny.

@riceuten

The Taxpayers Alliance are a Tory front, and have come out with this sort of drivel frequently.

I think that purity politics have helped get us into this mess.

The idea that only the Guardian can do proper journalism, and that anything in the Mail has to be drivel (even if written by Julie Bindel or Suzanne Moore.)

The idea that research from a group which is clear about it purpose, cannot be accurate or worthwhile, simply because it campaigns for a smaller state, something many of the British electorate would support. (Read the Spectator article about the circularity of Government funded organisations using their lobbying power to lobby for more Government funding.)

The idea that left wing feminists cannot gender critical, so have to be funded by the American Christian far right.

And so on.

When can we get back to a place where people can read for a variety of sources and do their own evaluation of the credibility and potential bias of each source and come to their own view. Almost 50% of kids are now going to University. I do so hope that they learn to evaluate critically and constructively so we move beyond the "but they are a Tory front".

The Welsh Government refused to support Plaid Cymru to give children free school meals to children but spent a hell of a lot of money to become Stonewall Diversity Champions. I thought it was £2,500 per year as per the Welsh Government website but apparently it is a lot more. See MerchedCymru.

The Taxpayers Alliance are a Tory front, and have come out with this sort of drivel frequently.

They are certainly right wing, as some other think tanks are left wing, but I don't see how that is a valid criticism of their research.

@riceuten the paper is essentially just a collection of financial data from FOI requests, which bits are drivel?

the government practice of publicly funding campaigning organisations is deeply damaging to democracy

and left children in Wales going hungry

The Welsh Government should be ashamed of themselves. There is NOTHING for the kids in my local town to do except take drugs. All the youth clubs shut, no all day holiday activities, football grounds built on, skate park gone. Nothing. You could have spent this money on something good.

Ritasueandbobtoo9

I agree.

Well that's money well-wasted. And speaking of getting wasted, I need a drink after reading about this.

The TPA was founded in 2004 by a group of "libertarian" Conservatives, frustrated by what they saw as the party's decision to ditch its traditional tax-cutting stance." At the time, the Conservatives felt the need to match the Labour Party's spending plans, and the TPA aimed to represent those "who want to have lower taxes and lower spending". The stated attraction for donors is the TPA's ability to "fly kites" for policy ideas which the Conservatives may then formally adopt.

When LBC's Nick Ferrari asked TPA's campaign manager Susie Squire whether she was "secretly Conservative", she rejected the accusation as "outrageous", saying the organisation was "totally independent". In 2010, Squire became a special adviser to the Conservative Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, before going on to become head of press for the Conservative party. Squire subsequently worked as David Cameron's press secretary in 10 Downing Street

The Taxpayers Alliance was founded by political strategist Matthew Elliott, who founded Eurosceptic think tank Business for Britain as well as Conservative Friends of Russia, Big Brother Watch and the NOtoAV campaign during the 2011 Alternative Vote referendum. In 2015, Elliot was appointed chief executive of the Vote Leave campaign to promote a British withdrawal from the European Union.

@riceuten you seem to have missed my question:

The paper is essentially just a collection of financial data from FOI requests, which bits are drivel?

Just this thread title is absolutely staggering. How much?! And for what actual benefit to the LGB community?

ChattyLion

If you look at MerchedCymru website, you will see how much the Welsh Government has spent. I thought it was £2,500 per year but apparently it is a hell of a lot more.

Riceuten

And….

No one disagrees that some think tanks are right of centre whilst others are to the left.

Or that some Tory MPs believe in a smaller state, or that many of these were pro-Brexit.

You may not agree with motives behind their research, but the methodology seems sound, indeed straightforward.

So perfectly fine for people on this board to accept the data and perhaps say that whilst they don’t support tax cuts, they do support taxpayers money being used wisely, and they can think of a lot of better ways to spend this money.

Indeed many might suggest that Stonewall has used the money in ways which are damaging to women and their rights, and divisive for society.

Or do you think we should only accept information if it comes from a ‘correct’ source, and not venture out of the bubble simply because the ‘wrong’ people collated the data.

I heard Matthew Elliot give a public lecture at my old University. Bright, interesting, bloke whether you agree with him or not.

Oh No!

If you read things produced by the other side, you might be convinced!

Much better just to read things from safe, approved sources.

Do I like the Taxpayers' Alliance? No. Do I think they have produced a carried out a useful and enlightening FOI exercise? Yes.

If you go through life rejecting all information because you don't like the source @riceuten (or, by the same token, accepting all from sources you like without question), you're going to come a cropper sooner or later, mark my words.

You'll find that real life is never quite as cut and dried as Twitter presents it.

@Ritasueandbobtoo9

The Welsh Government should be ashamed of themselves. There is NOTHING for the kids in my local town to do except take drugs. All the youth clubs shut, no all day holiday activities, football grounds built on, skate park gone. Nothing. You could have spent this money on something good.

100% agree.

How utterly depressing. Plaid
Cymru though, despite their pledge to free school meals, are big advocates of stonewall.

What a fucking shit show.

It’s a pretty impressive gig though. When you think l about it - selling the same magic beans over and over again to multiple people. Actually ‘renting’ the beans as they need to pay again the next year to keep the... errrr beans growing...

This from The Critic perfectly sums it up

thecritic.co.uk/were-all-funding-stonewall/

after years of austerity with services cut to the bone we the tax payer have been funding this woke nonsense - how many Surestarts could this money have funded? The govt offers 5% rise to nurses as its all it can afford whilst at the same time paying huge sums of our money to these racketeers

Heads need to roll. They really do. It’s misappropriation of funds surely? Why - so they look like the ‘good guys’ and an exercise in self importance.

I have worked with people like that - working well above their skill set and experience, and just dazzled by a snake oil salesperson.