Times are changing at the Taxpayers’ Alliance

Those tortured souls who study the Kremlinology of Westminster think-tanks had some rare excitement last night. Out went Matthew Sinclair as the Chief Executive of the Taxpayers’ Alliance (TPA), the tax cutting campaigners, and up stepped Jonathan Isaby, once of the Telegraph and ConservativeHome, to replace him. Isaby was political director at the TPA. John O’Connell, who is fresh from the TPA’s successful lobbying campaign against fuel duty and beer taxes, becomes overall director.

Matthew Elliott, the group’s founder, announced the news this morning. ‘The next election is shaping up to be one of the closest in living memory, and I’m pleased that the TPA will be in good hands over the crucial eighteen months running up to 7 May 2015,’ he said.

But, are the times really a-changing at the TPA? Elliott stepped aside for Sinclair before the AV referendum in 2011. Sources from within the organisation have told me of Elliott’s continued ‘back seat driver mentality’.