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Britain on the brink?
This week, the scale and staggering cost of Britain’s illegal migration crisis became impossible to ignore.A damning report from the Home Affairs Committee ([link removed]) revealed how migrant hotels have shifted from being a “temporary stop-gap” to the government’s “go-to solution”, with costs tripling from £4.5 billion to £15.3 billion. Even worse, the report exposed how private contractors are pocketing “excessive” profits off the backs of hardworking taxpayers.

Naturally, the TPA leapt straight into action, securing four separate media slots in one day to hammer home the message that taxpayers are being taken for a ride. Our investigations campaign manager, Callum McGoldrick, told Peter Cardwell on Talk ([link removed]) : “If you do the maths, you can see this is clearly not value for money. What should be looked at is keeping them in short-term accommodation before deporting them.”
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Further to this, it was revealed by The Sun that the Heathrow detention centre was offering £31,500 for a hairdresser job to cut the hair of illegal migrants before deportation and needed to know the “cultural needs” of the people that they were dealing with. Having none of it, our media campaign manager told GB News viewers ([link removed]) on Martin Daubney’s show, “I don’t think that illegal immigrants should have their haircut. The only thing that they should be having cut is the amount of time they spend in the UK”.
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Between ballooning hotel bills and pampered deportees, this week proved what we at the TPA have been saying for a long time about how broken and expensive the UK’s approach to illegal immigration has become. We will keep exposing and commenting on these absurd wastes of taxpayers’ money and calling for a system that puts taxpayers, not illegal migrants, first.

If you agree with us that it’s time to stop illegal migration, sign our petition to stop the boats. ([link removed])
They can’t say we didn’t warn them

All the way back in May 2025 ([link removed]) we warned that the Covid Inquiry would end up being the most expensive statutory inquiry in British history. Highlighting this clearly irritated those running the inquiry who branded our research as ‘flawed’.

Fast forward 11 months, and headlines broke that show, unsurprisingly, our research team was bang on the money. The latest figures show that the covid inquiry has spent £192 million to date, making it, indeed, the most expensive statutory inquiry in history. With at least 6 months left to run, we now estimate the cost will be £234 million in our latest research note ([link removed]) , covered by Guido Fawkes. ([link removed])
Williamjoined Nick Ferrari to tell LBC listeners ([link removed]) just how this has happened by pointing the finger at some of the more ridiculous spending areas. Will correctly pointed out that, “£22 million on cost cutting costs doesn’t really sound like ‘cost cutting at all”.
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Elliot put pen to paper in CapX ([link removed]) , further explaining the problems with the inquiry, “The issues with the Covid Inquiry are a function, not a flaw of the system. It should have focused on one question and one question only. Namely, was the UK’s highly authoritarian response to the pandemic worth it? Did it save enough lives to be worth the enormous damage it did to the country? The businesses destroyed, the liberties suspended, the relationships ended, the developments stunted.”
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He also took to our own social media channels ([link removed]) , saying that the Covid inquiry has “spent hundreds of millions of pounds of your money for nothing other than gossip and tittle tattle”. Hear Hear!
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Even Labour ministers are starting to fear a part time public sector

It seems the whole world is waking up to the TPA’s warnings this week. As well as being proven right on the cost of the covid inquiry, Labour ministers have finally wisened up to the scam being perpetrated on the residents of south Cambridgeshire, where employees of the local council are now working permanently part time.

In a rare piece of good news, Labour’s local government ministers, Steve Reed, wrote a pretty punchy letter ([link removed]) to the leader of the council to express his disappointment in the way the local authority is being run. He seemed to forget that it was Labour who gave them the green light last summer when, upon coming to power, Reed’s predecessor Angela Rayner lifted the previous government’s “best value notice” on the council. But credit where credit’s due.

We’re not afraid of praising Labour politicians when they do something sensible, and our campaigns director held his hands up and acknowledged to the Telegraph that “Steve Reed is right to be taking them to task”, adding he “shouldn’t leave any option off the table in dealing with this rogue local authority.”
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Elliot also found time to pop over to our good friends at GB News to chat to Martin Daubney about the four day week in south Cambridgeshire and beyond. Speaking directly to viewers ([link removed]) Elliot said “working people are paying their council tax for a full time council and they deserve a full time council.”

Shockingly, 25 other local authorities are believed to be considering a similar trial, as is Plaid Cymru, which looks likely to be in government in Wales after the elections in May. We’ve been leading the way in holding back the tide of part time work for full time pay in the public sector, but we need your help.

Can you chip in to our fighting fund by donating to the TPA today? ([link removed])
A Nation of Taxpayers

There is nothing the TPA loves more than getting out on the road and it’s the exact same with our podcast, a nation of taxpayers. So this week our podcast host Duncan Barkes and research director Darwin Friend headed to Southend for a walkabout with Phillip Miller ([link removed]) , the legendary owner of Adventure Island, the UK’s no.1 free entry theme park and also candidate for mayor of Essex next year.
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It was perfect timing given the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of Phillip’s ownership of the theme park. Phillip told us the truly inspiring story of the way his hard graft and entrepreneurial spirit turned the theme park, the pier and to some extent the whole of Southend around. Speaking to Duncan and Darwin, Phillip said that when he took it over “Southend was in the doldrums, we had the world’s longest pier but the council were talking about taking it down… bit by bit, inch by inch we expanded and trebled the size [of the theme park] from what it once was.” It really is a must listen
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More foreign aid waste

You might have hoped that with the foreign aid budget slashed to just 0.3 per cent of GDP bureaucrats would have put an end to ridiculous foreign aid projects and focused aid spending on where it genuinely matters: responding to humanitarian disasters.
Sadly that couldn’t be further from the truth, as an explosive report revealed ([link removed]) in the Telegraph this week. Tens of millions of pounds have been spaffed up the wall on a number of particularly absurd projects, all in the name of climate aid. Most shocking is surely the £52 million spent on a “road to nowhere” in Guyana, South America.
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John’s comments are worth quoting at length. He told Telegraph readers that "Taxpayers are sick of seeing their hard-earned cash whittled away on questionable projects in far-away places while living standards at home continue to slide.” John added that “Given the state of the public finances and the challenges the Government is facing in terms of cutting spending, green aid is an inappropriate use of precious funds, even if those funds were being used for their intended purpose. What these examples show, however, is that this green aid is in many cases not even being used to mitigate the impact of climate change.”
Blog of the week

The TPA has frequently campaigned against mickey mouse degrees, highlighting the absurdity of taxpayer subsidies for courses such as amusing examples of these include golf management. We are all aware though that the problems with universities run deeper.
Our blog of the week ([link removed]) is a guest submission focussing on the new ‘V Level scheme’. It’s not enough for them to be yet another route into university so that even more students can wrack up tens of thousands in debt that they can’t pay off.
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Paul Wiltshire, founder of Universitywatch.org ([link removed]) , writes for us to say that V Levels need to be a route into work for those that would prefer it. Crucially, it’s time to end the practice of jobs requiring degrees for no good reason.

As Paul says, “Young adults who enter the work force and avoid the debt trap should be lauded by society for their status as hard-working taxpayers rather than looked down upon as non-graduates.

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War on Waste

As it’s halloween weekend this week's war on waste ([link removed]) comes courtesy of the paranormal, with ghosts… Well, ghost patients. These are once legitimate patients at GP surgeries that have either moved away or died yet stay on the books. GP’s are able to claim £170 for each one.

As our policy analyst, Shimeon, told the mail, “The continuing presence of ghost patients is a damning indictment of the failure of the NHS bureaucracy.”

Please send me your examples of wasteful public sector spending (mailto:[email protected])

Benjamin Elks
Grassroots Development Manager

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