Elliot Keck
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Articles by Elliot Keck
In praise of Pixar
The animation studio produces surprisingly sound as well as entertaining films Western civilisation must feel like a minefield for socially conservative parents. The idolisation of the individual is everywhere. Gone are the days when our institutions and culture imbued ideas of duty, loyalty, probity, frugality and discipline.
Why are British MPs so insanely obsessed with Israel?
Share Topics Identity Politics Politics UK Want unlimited, ad-free access? Become a spiked supporter. When Shockat Adam defeated Jonathan Ashworth in one of the biggest shock results of the 2024 General Election to become the new MP for Leicester South, he described his victory as being ‘for the people of Gaza’.
Is football hooliganism fashionable?
As violence returns to Edgware Road, official insistence that two-tier policing is a myth looks increasingly difficult to sustain We are told time and time and again that we simply must ignore the evidence of our own eyes: there is no two tier policing in Britain.
Reform have become the right-wing Lib Dems
A lazy framing of British party politics portrays Reform UK playing the equivalent role on the right of British politics that the Green Party does on the left, with each outflanking the Conservatives and Labour, their respective rivals on the centre-right and centre-left.
Business doesn’t want a ‘partnership’ with the state
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Elliot Keck: How the Green Party will use our town halls to attack Israel
Cllr Elliot Keck represents Hyde Park Ward on Westminster City Council and is Political Director (maternity cover) of the Conservative Friends of Israel. On Thursday 7th May I was one of two Conservative councillors elected in the Hyde Park ward of Westminster. It was a hard-fought battle.
There is nothing authentic about Andy Burnham
The blokeish Labour man is as slimy a politician as the rest of them Andy Burnham and his allies have supposedly been incandescent with Wes Streeting for a “transparent” attempt to derail Andy Burnham’s by-election, through the appalling tactic of highlighting that our lord and saviour Andy of Manchester, like Streeting, proudly and publicly supports rejoining the EU. Apparently, this “reeks of desperation and selfishness.” Has nobody told wily Wes that Andy has a God-given right to this seat?
What on Earth is the point of the Lib Dems?
With neither power nor principles, the party is an absolute waste of space Power versus principles — it is the trade off that is at the heart of politics. To what extent should a political party sacrifice its deeply held principles in the pursuit of winning an election? It is not a new question, or one that has only appeared in the context of democratic politics.
Elliot Keck: Tax penalties for family cars are not justified
Elliott Keck is the Campaigns Director for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. What is going to be the next battleground in local government? In 2023 it was the four-day week, as part-time working practices for full-time pay threatened to engulf a sector struggling with productivity. The next battleground? It’s looking increasingly like it will be over heavier vehicles, namely family cars, electric vehicles and vans, and their right to park.
From Newton to newts
Putting badgers on the banknotes may avoid controversy, but it also avoids saying anything meaningful about Britain at all Trigger warning. British wildlife is dull. I may be forever damning a future political career here, but it has to be said.
Too little, too late, and too expensive
It’s finally (almost) over! Almost four years from its establishment, and six years from the first lockdown, the covid inquiry wrapped up its last day of witness testimony this week. There is still a way to go before the final report is published. But we are certainly at the beginning of the end. Was it worth it? At a cost of over £200 million up to now - and a projected cost of £234 million according to our latest estimate - the standard should be very high. It doesn’t come close.
Elliot Keck: Councils are spending more and more on taking children to school in taxis
In May 2025, the Spectator ran undoubtedly one of the most attention-grabbing front covers of 2025: Scuzz Nation. As the author of the piece, wrote, summarising the concept: “Scuzz Nation looks very much like the country of a few years ago, only worse.
Cancelling council elections means taxation without representation
For 350 years it has been established in the British constitution that taxes can only be levied for the crown with the consent of parliament. Ever since the Bill of Rights this principle – articulated most famously by the American revolutionaries in their call for no taxation without representation – has been core to our understanding of what it means to be a democracy.
Elliot Keck: All out council elections offer better value than electing in thirds
Elliott Keck is the Campaigns Director for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Local elections are an unusually fraught topic at the moment. There are dozens of councils considering submitting a request to postpone their contests scheduled for May – the result of the reorganisation of local authorities that is currently underway in much of England. For the same reason, many elections in 2025 were also postponed meaning in some areas there could be two years worth of delays. This is unacceptable.
Elliot Keck: Petty municipal authoritarianism has a fundamental laziness
Ask almost any resident, at least in a London council, what they want their local authority to focus on, and one theme comes up consistently: enforcement. This applies to all politics: the public are sick of seeing laws piled on laws, when the existing rules we have aren’t enforced in the first place. In April 2024, the previous government announced that they would make assaulting a shopworker a separate criminal offence after a surge in violent and abusive incidents against shopworkers.
The Budget was nakedly ideological
Does this dying government want to take the country with it? This is the budget of a dying government. It has no interest in the future of the country — it doesn’t even have any interest in its own long term survival. It knows it can limp through to the next election with the size of its majority, and it knows it’s already lost. That’s why this budget is so nakedly ideological. If you’re going to lose, then who cares about what the public thinks of your policies?
Elliot Keck: How serious is the Government about cracking down on councils with four-day weeks?
Elliott Keck is the Campaigns Director for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. It’s astonishing how much time this government is spending mopping up the mess that they made only a year or so ago. Usually it takes years to realise the damage done by a policy, or a piece of legislation, at least when it’s your own.
The Crown Estate: What taxpayers need to know
by Elliot Keck, head of campaigns We were hoping that we would never need to mention Prince Andrew, the disgraced royal, in any TPA communications, but given the extent of news coverage over his living arrangements and the clear taxpayer implications, we thought it worth explaining exactly what is going on. What has been revealed in recent days is that Andrew does not, and never has, paid rent on his accommodation at Royal Lodge, in Windsor, which he leases from the Crown Estate.
Kemi Badenoch's policy agenda: a decisive shift?
by Elliot Keck, head of campaigns We’ve had to wait for a long time for a detailed, clearly laid out policy agenda from the leader of the opposition, Kemi Badenoch. There’s certainly been a drip drip of undeniably sound proposals, such as extending to ten years the amount of time someone has to be here before claiming indefinite leave to remain. There have also been encouraging announcements on energy policy - such as scrapping the net zero target and getting rid of the disastrous windfall tax.
Elliot Keck: Labour restoring subsidised pensions for councillors sends a terrible message
Elliot Keck is the Head of Campaigns for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. The greatest strategic challenge for the Conservatives – under Kemi Badenoch or any other leader – is how to position themselves in a way that represents a dramatic change from a stagnant Labour government, but which doesn’t involve simply following the lead of Reform UK’s policy agenda – and also remains true to consistent, conservative values.
Labour is rewarding failure by giving councillors gold-plated pensions
Steve Reed, the Communities Secretary, has announced gold-plated pensions will be re-instated to councillors - Chris J. Ratcliffe/Bloomberg It’s difficult to imagine a policy more obviously unpopular with voters and taxpayers than restoring gold-plated benefit pensions to our army of more than 16,000 elected councillors.
Ed Davey represents the worst of British politics
by Elliot Keck, head of campaigns Sir Ed Davey represents the worst of British politics. Before you accuse me of hyperbole, let me expand. He’s not a fascist, or a communist - the two extreme ends of the political spectrum which were responsible for the mass slaughter of millions in the 20th century. He seems like a decent chap, in fact. But fascism and communism are not serious forces in British politics, fortunately.
Dear Angela Rayner, scrap stamp duty and inheritance tax
by Elliot Keck, head of campaigns The TPA as a rule does not comment on an individual’s tax affairs, particularly when there is no evidence or allegation of illegal activity. The reason is simple: everyone has a right to arrange their tax affairs in the way that best suits them and their family, providing it is within the law. And these arrangements, provided they are within the law, should be private.
Elliot Keck: Reform UK is right to challenge councils over the high fees and poor performance of their pension funds
Elliot Keck is the Head of Campaigns for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Most people’s eyes glaze over when discussing the technical details of pension policy. It doesn’t seem the sexiest of topics. However, the government’s liabilities for taxpayer-funded pensions – the state pension and public sector pensions – sits in the trillions. Combined these amount to more than the UK’s GDP.
Labour is sneaking through a wealth tax in all but name
It’s impossible to overstate how dangerous this moment is for Britain. The economic choices of the chancellor this autumn will determine whether we as a country leave the door ajar, even if only slightly, for the aspirational and the affluent. The attitude of this Government, and sadly the last government to some extent, has so far has been little short of hostile.
Labour is sneaking through a wealth tax in all but name
Opinion Elliot Keck Tue 19 August 2025 at 10:24 am UTC 4 min read It’s impossible to overstate how dangerous this moment is for Britain. The economic choices of the chancellor this autumn will determine whether we as a country leave the door ajar, even if only slightly, for the aspirational and the affluent. The attitude of this Government, and sadly the last government to some extent, has so far has been little short of hostile.
Elliot Keck: Inheritance tax raises trivial sums of money and is rightly loathed. The Tories should scrap it
Elliot Keck is the Head of Campaigns for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Search inheritance tax into Google news and take a look at what comes up.
Elliot Keck: We need a referendum cap on tax rises from parish councils
Elliot Keck is the Head of Campaigns for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Shirebrook, Peterlee, Whitelackington, Mixbury, Meavy, Kingswood. These are places that, unless you are from there, you are unlikely to ever have heard of. There’s no reason why you should have. Relatively unremarkable places, what they have in common is that they are all home to an unusual governing arrangement. They all have parish, or town, councils.
British courts are being clogged by unaccountable quangos
How can an Australian company be sued by Brazilians — in Britain? A vast amount of time in the British courts over the past few years has been devoted to a class action lawsuit against a mining company for the worst environmental disaster in the country’s history. Except the company in question is Australian, and the country in question is Brazil. What on earth is going on here?
Elliot Keck: Central Government keeps piling on extra burdens on councils - without extra funding
Two stories caught my eye recently, while I was thinking about the topic of my next column. One was the news that Jim McMahon, the minister for local government, is strongly considering sending in commissioners to run Croydon council due to fears that it is heading for effective bankruptcy for the fourth time.
How HMRC turns mourning into misery
by Elliot Keck, head of campaigns The state doesn’t have many friends at the moment. Everyone has a bone to pick with it. Whether it’s Londoners sick of seeing TfL turn a blind eye to fare-evasion, learners becoming impatient with the lack of driving test availability, elderly patients waiting for a hip operation, or victims of crime facing drawn out court cases due to the backlog, positive interactions with the state are becoming a rarity.
Elliot Keck: Will the Reform UK councils pursue the war on second homes?
Elliot Keck is the Head of Campaigns for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Reform UK is now in control of a remarkable ten councils, all of them pinched off the Conservatives bar County Durham, which was previously a rainbow coalition of different parties. That poses challenges – after all, how will Reform councillors in county councils deal with the fact that they run social care providers – with libraries attached?
Britain's Quangos Uncovered: A car crash in management
by Elliot Keck, head of campaigns We at the TPA have just launched a new project, Britain’s Quangos Uncovered, which seeks to pull back the curtain on the quango state - the nexus of regulators, committees, advisory bodies, service providers and much more which sit largely out of ministerial control and yet command huge budgets and significant powers. One of the key aims of the project is to identify what should actually be done about these bodies.
Britain needs a quangopalypse
A periodic “quango cull” is not enough Edmund Burke once told his constituents “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays you instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.” This speaks to an unresolved debate on the role of an MP — are they elected simply to represent the views of their constituents, or are they elected to act in what they believe to be the interests of their constituents and their nation?
Elliot Keck: A record-breaking 3,906 council employees are earning over £100,000
Elliot Keck is the Head of Campaigns for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. There is a very interesting contrast between Labour’s approach to bureaucrats nationally and locally. When they first came to office, ministers bent over backwards to demonstrate their devotion to the public sector. Without a single condition attached, they handed out billions of pounds worth of pay rises and insulated the sector from the national insurance rise on employers. Since then relations have grown frosty.
As Britain tightens its belt, the public sector is growing richer than ever
Welcome to “awful April”. Bills are going up – often above inflation – for water, energy, the licence fee, stamp duty, broadband, car tax, mobile and of course council tax. Council tax alone is going up by an average of 5 per cent in England and as much as 15 per cent in parts of Scotland. For households with the temerity to own a second home, they are likely now seeing the rate on which they have to pay for their second property double.
Elliot Keck: Councils should not be using Council Tax increases to boost their reserves
Up and down the country, councils are casting their eyes over budgets for the upcoming financial year. From cabinet to full council, there will, no doubt, be many a lively discussion. What we know for certain about the outcome will be that virtually all will end up rubber-stamping another round of above-inflation tax hikes and brutal cuts to budgets, including frontline services. For millions, those tax rises won’t be capped at five per cent like in most of England.
Elliot Keck: The rape gangs scandal shows councils should scrap all equality, diversity and inclusion training
All victims of the “grooming gangs” scandal have their own unique stories, each of which should be heard with the compassion they deserve. But when dealing with a crisis, a crime, on this sort of scale, covering dozens of towns and cities, tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of victims, and thousands of culprits, it is the common themes that are more important in addressing the root problems.
Elliot Keck: If Windsor and Maidenhead Council wants to hike council tax by 25 per cent they should hold a referendum
Elliott Keck is the Head of Campaigns for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. “I would die in a ditch if someone tries to take Broxbourne council away.” This was Lewis Cocking, the new MP for Broxbourne speaking on the TaxPayers’ Alliance’s local government panel at Conservative party conference. He was answering a question on whether local government should double down on the growing trend towards unitary authorities. He and thousands of district councillors may now have an almighty fight on their hands.
Labour’s tax on business will cost young workers the most
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Elliot Keck: Rayner's flawed indulgence of the municipal four-day week
Elliott Keck is the Head of Campaigns for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. There is a good rule for councils to bear in mind, or at least councils at district level or smaller. If you find yourself making national headlines, assume you’re doing something wrong. District councils are responsible for bins, housing, council tax collection and planning. There is nothing in that list of responsibilities that should land a council on the front page of a newspaper.
It’s the economy, stupid
The US election was another reminder of people’s biggest political priority A curious thing happens in the days before a US election.
Elliott Keck: Nearly five thousand non-residential council buildings sit empty
Sometimes I get tired of making the argument that what local authorities need to do is get back to basics, ditch the gimmicks and pet projects and focus on what matters: delivering high-quality public services at low cost. Particularly when the number of councils in serious financial difficulties only grows. Is it really a time for soundbites? Then a news story comes along which reminds me that far from being a soundbite, this remains a central cause of the financial woes of many councils.
Robbing the productive to pay for the public sector will leave Britain bankrupt
Don’t listen to anyone that says Starmer’s government lacks a clear vision or philosophy. It has one, and it’s clear as day. It’s in office to enrich, empower and embolden the public sector. A government of bureaucrats, by bureaucrats, for bureaucrats. To the extent that the private sector has any worth, it’s to act as a piggy bank for politicians to dig ever deeper into. It does have a problem with its messaging, however. Where is the grand slogan? Cameron had his big society, Blair his third way.
Robbing the productive to pay for the public sector will leave Britain bankrupt
Don’t listen to anyone that says Starmer’s government lacks a clear vision or philosophy. It has one, and it’s clear as day. It’s in office to enrich, empower and embolden the public sector. A government of bureaucrats, by bureaucrats, for bureaucrats. To the extent that the private sector has any worth, it’s to act as a piggy bank for politicians to dig ever deeper into. It does have a problem with its messaging, however. Where is the grand slogan? Cameron had his big society, Blair his third way.
Keir’s comms catastrophe
Labour’s goal is clear but its messaging is anything but Starmer’s administration is beset by crises. Downing Street is in chaos, many of the government’s flagship policies are on the rocks, and ministers are spending more time batting away growing allegations of cronyism and corruption than they are explaining policies. What ties these issues together is a catastrophic failure of communications and messaging. This is most obviously seen in how Starmer tried to define himself while in opposition.
Reeves’ plan is tried and failed
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Elliott Keck: Is the Council Tax discount for single-person households under threat?
The rumour mill is fully in motion. While the official line on the Council Tax discount for single-person households is that the government “currently has no plans to reform council tax”, there is more than a hint of ambiguity in the way that answer is constructed. They certainly haven’t ruled it out unequivocally. One thing we do know for certain is that it won’t be in the budget, despite reports.
Elliot Keck: Waste collection is a mess
Elliott Keck is Head of Campaigns for the Taxpayers’ Alliance. Sometimes at the TaxPayers’ Alliance we focus on the big things. Like the national debt, which now stands at over £2.5 trillion. We’ve released a debt clock which shows the national debt ticking up by £4,410 per second, £321 million per day. Other times we like to focus on the smaller, seemingly trivial matters. Like our latest research which reveals the number of bins in each council area around the UK.
National Debt is Rising By £381 Million Every Day — Adam Smith Institute
The TPA’s debt clock launched with a bang this week. And it’s hardly a surprise. For the first time in a while, the country, its politicians and its press have been talking about the state of the public finances. Not since the Cameron government has this really been the case. Ever since then our politicians have been guilty of reaching for the magic money tree every time a problem arose.
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