By News Team
⋅ August 11, 2008
The ruling elite's contempt for British taxpayers has been revealed once again with the shocking news that more than £1million a week is being spent on Government focus groups, surveys and opinion polls to “find out what voters think.”
In all, £55 million has been paid out over the past year for a bewildering range of citizens' juries, telephone and internet polls and consumer surveys.
The most expensive project was a survey to ascertain the ‘public acceptability' of charging motorists for every mile they drive, which cost the Department of Transport £566,111.
It was followed by a project to test ‘ attitudes to climate change', also conducted by the Department for Transport, which cost £411,500.
The Environment Department spent £13,585 asking the public about their ‘attitude to farmers' and £5,165 gauging ‘consumer attitudes to water efficiency of bathroom fittings'.
The International Development Department commissioned a £7,400 survey to measure interest in 'shopping ethically for Valentine's Day'.
The biggest spending department was Health, which paid £10,432,843 for polls and surveys.
A single polling firm, Ipsos-MORI, appears to have been paid at least £31million over the last two years.
Are online polls a waste of time?