The Bumper Book of Government Waste: The scandal of the squandered billions from Lord Irvine's wallpaper to EU saunas [Hardcover]

Who's a pretty wasteful prime minister, then?

Tax needn't be quite this taxing

£225,000 lavished on slipper safety advice

Relax - it's not our cash we're wasting

IT disasters, glossy brochures-it's all Whitehall's ever-expanding wasteline

Welcome to the world of waste. You are about to enter a twilight zone of crazy spending, political correctness, utter incompetence, and fantastic jollies, all funded by the British taxpayer. In this book, the authors have highlighted a myriad of examples of Government waste and useless spending, taken from thousands of examples held on file. The figures have been compiled from independent reports, media coverage and official statistics. Added together, they come to GBP81 billion of waste. In 1997, the Government plundered GBP2 billion per week from its people. In 2004-05, the figure was GBP4.8 billion. The Arts Council spent GBP77,000 sending a team of artists to the North Pole to make a snowman. Quangos cost over GBP22 billion per year. Local government pension schemes are in deficit to the tune of GBP27 billion. The taxpayer will fund the difference. 459 books were withdrawn from the EU's Luxembourg library last year. The cost to taxpayers was GBP2,138 per book. Ken Livingstone's office now costs GBP13.9 million to run. His staff includes 58 media and marketing personnel! Between 2000 and 2005, one in every two new jobs created was in the public sector, many of them administrative. Nottinghamshire tourism bosses spent GBP120,000 of taxpayers' money rebranding the county with a big 'N'. Each European member of Parliament (MEP) costs GBP2.4 million per year in salary, expenses, perks and administration. In 2005, 20 out of 24 government departments overspent their budgets. The total overspend was GBP7.1 billion. These are just a few of the alarming facts and figures revealed in The Bumper Book of Government Waste. If you wasted your family's money on this scale, you would probably be locked up. Why should the Government get away with it?

The TaxPayers' Alliance was launched in 2004 to represent taxpayers in the corridors of power and to fight for lower taxes. Now with over 10,000 supporters, it is regularly cited in the media as the taxpayers' waste watcher. This book is edited by Matthew Elliott, Chief Executive of the TPA, who has previously written widely on the European Union and is now a regular commentator on government spending.