My Telegraph column today concentrates on how the love affair between Labour and business is over and the opportunity this presents for the Conservatives. Here's an extract...Read the full column HERE.In some ways, appealing to the business community is a simpler task than appealing to the electorate as a whole. Most Tory MPs know what business people put at the top of their wish list: to be left alone. They know this because a good proportion of them have worked in business and they know the damage government intervention can do.
Fewer than 10 out of 350 Labour MPs have ever run a business. Business Secretary John Hutton's qualification for the job is that he was a law lecturer at Newcastle Poly for 11 years before becoming an MP. The minister for business, Shriti Vadera, has spent the past eight years as an adviser to Gordon Brown. She counts among her "achievements" Railtrack's renationalisation, the selling of Qinetiq for a fraction of its true value, and the disastrous creation of Metronet. This one-woman disaster zone has cost the taxpayer several hundred million pounds, but she clearly isn't finished yet...
...Northern Rock has shot Labour's economic competence to pieces, but the Tories can't just take for granted that the City will turn to them. Muttering platitudes about "sharing the proceeds of growth" is not good enough. Government borrowing is spiralling out of control, so it is now time to look at Labour's spending plans again and question whether it is wise to stick with the commitment to spend money the country hasn't got.
21 comments:
Do you feel that Tories should be the party of big business? I would say that we should focus more on small businesses, the true lifeblood of our economy, as these are the ones without the multi-billion pound lobying clout.
The party should be the party FOR business, full stop. We need all business to be successful, not pit one business sector against the other. But I agree with you about small businesses.
Well my small business is screwed thanks to the EU in ways I shall not bother you with . I see that national Insurance is now 11% up to £40,000 so that’s £500 I do not have spare . My car is getting stuffed for £300 or so and I only bought the stupid thing because of their vile booster seat laws which left me no option .The 'help back to work' for all those doing nothing is unfunded and basically a lie .I gather cuts are deferred until after the GE and we have borrowed £20 billion to be paid back later ..after the GE .I have no pension and the car I have , by the way is "vintage" .
That was a good article Iain. On your last point there is a difference. Big business is very pleased to have newbies regulated out of the market and for a while this sort of approach will work. We are building up long term problems though as we are less and less equipped to cope with change becoming a corporate state . It may be unrealistic to expect big business to be on the same side as small
In fact , it was an excellent article , your best so far. I see Mr. Watson is being nasty to you about Ashcroft`s doubloons. If you look at Bob Pipers Blog there is a comment under the Ashcroft thread that is devastating about the amount he gets out of the MP gig. £300 k apparently
This does not cheer me as I desperately try to stay afloat .Do they have no idea what it is to earn a living ?!
Please provide a list for the "only ten" Labour MPs who have run a business or a reference to someone who does that.
Calling Labour for selling something off cheap, arguably, is pretty rich coming from a Tory whose team gave away huge swathes of the nation's businesses at truly horrible undervalues.
BT and the Utilities for example. Qinetix pales by comparison.
Not to mention the big council house land grab.
Newmania, I feel sorry for you, struggling under the weight of not making a decent living.
I and many others run businesses which make a decent profit. I'm personally better off because of the income tax changes - to the tune of more than £200 per year.
Maybe you're in the wrong business, or aren't good enopugh at what you do?
Chris Paul-I must admit I am amazed there are as many as ten.
Maybe you're in the wrong business, or aren't good enough at what you do?
Almost certainly both...thanks for that.
Summary
Single Households on the lowest incomes, including those with nobody in employment, will have their incomes boosted by around 0.6 per cent.
Lone parents, whether in employment or not, will see their incomes increased by 1.25 per cent. Working families with school-age children will have the effects of the tax rises slightly mitigated by an increase in child benefit. BUT Due to NI ceiling rising those on £40k and above are £520 out of pocket and 9 out of 10 cars hit including most family cars "
I get a sop back with child benefit but overall I `m stuffed , and I gather e there is a lot worse to come after the GE.
Do not be in work
Do not have children
Do not drive a car
Do not be a one income family
Do not get married
Anymore Labour Laws down from the mountain recently . I`ve got a better business being an MP Tom Watson squeezes £300k pa out of it and look what mediocrity he is .
Yup wrong business and stupid I must be and I`d better get back to it ...
Big Business is very different to Business.
What is good for Business is good for all of us, what is good for Big Business is often very bad for both small business and everyone else.
Chris Paul: BT was the very first privatisation, ever, in the entire world. How on earth could you achieve a value?
What about small businesses Iain? Remeber us - the small guys who (I believe) actually employ a larger percentage of those in the private sector than the big companies do - but whom no-one cares a fig about.
I started a company four years ago, we now employ 8 people and our turnover has trebled every year.
But guess what, I no longer spend any of my time doing what I used to (I have to now employ someone to do that for me), because I am too busy filling in forms and doing stuff which adds no value to my company in the slightest. I have to worry about employment legislation, health and safety, and sending people on expensive 'traning courses' before they can go to an exhibition and lift a box out of the boot of a car!
And this is before I have to do the accounts and pay people!
The tax system is a complete nightmare - even when you pay accountants thousands a year to help ease the workload. The cost of employing people is so high it makes us think several times before employing someone. And now we cannot use 'temporary' staff as the Govt. insists we give them the same rights as contracted employees, including us spaying tax and NI for them!
In short, the regulation of and costs to the small business community is choking us, and in many cases simply not making it worth the while of the small entrepreneur.
Labour are only interested in big companies, and simply do not value the small businessman or women.
IS there any Labour MP who has ever started a company and made it into a sucess, and had any of the problems we have with employment law?
No - not one. They are all ex social workers, lecturers, jornalists, ex-think tank employees, or people who have been sucking-off the state since they left their non-university with their non-degree.
The ones with any private money are either people who have earned it through writing novels, or married supermaret heiresses! I cannot think of one Labour MP who has ever done anything useful in the real economy, ever actually produced anything of economic value, or ever had the feeling of fear over next month's cash flow.
They almost all come from a background where the state has always paid them!
And the banks are hopeless when it comes to small business too. My bank (who shall remain nameless) have a policy of any business overdraft in excess of £10k (yes, just ten thousand) being secured by a director of the company! This for a company which turnsover hundreds of thousands a quarter!
I was recently told by my business banker that his real expertise is looking after small retailers and takaways. If I wanted to get a service which better understands my company's needs, I need to be turning over £5 million a year. Until then, I am stuck with a guy who only really understands indian restaurants!
Great!
That is why we need a Tory government which uderstands the needs of the small bussinesman, and doesn't just ape Labour's big state, big tax, big intervention approach.
Ha ha I see Chris Paul thinks that selling council houses was a "grab". It was a massive transfer of wealth from the state to the working class - the very group that Labour claim to represent.
When it comes to the RTB, Labour are still horribly out of touch with their former core vote. People want a hand up not a hand out.
Newmania - I agree with your post word for word, and would just add that in my company (which I own) I do the longest hours, yet I am the least well paid of any of the company'e employees. Even my receptionist earns more than me!
Yes, I stand to profit from its future sale - but getting that sale depends upon it becoming attractive to a buyer, which means it being proftable. At the moment it struggles to be that - because it is so expensive to employ staff (even more so now after the budget) and because we spand al our time on non-value adding processes.
Think about this: I take all the financial risk (I founded the company out of my own resources), I am responsible for the salaries of 8 oether people - all of whoom are the major breadwinners for their family, and I pay myself the least simply to make the books balance. If it goes wrong, I lose everything - including the house. Yet what support do I get from HMG?
None - thay are not interested! They just pass law after regulation after directive, and tax you ever more.
Chris Paul: What crap you talk!
If it wasn't for the 'council house land grab', the estates which are now nicely maintained by people glad that they own their own house, have something to pass on to their children and are not dependent upon the benevolence of the state for shelter, would still be the same grubby, dirty crime ridden sess pits they were in the 1970s.
The sale of council house sales was one of the most successful pieces of social policy ever, and created more social mobility than this Government has ever managed to do.
Get real mate - your soviet style approach to how a country should be run was dissproved long agao!
Newmania :
Do not be in work
OK I'm a sole trader on £120k and I'm better off because of Income Tax changes, notwithstanding NI changes.
Do not have children
Why not? The tax credit system works for people with kids, and child benefit has gone up. No free milk any more , but free fruit in many primary schools.
Do not drive a car
I'm happy with my Hybrid - why ever would some-one not consider buying one as their family car?
Do not be a one income family
Why not? It's a matter of choice. Darling hasn't clobbered one income families
Do not get married
Ditto.
Excellent article but one small problem: when City people in particular encounter George Osborne, he lectures them in a pompous fashion about how their own areas of expertise, in a manner that convinces them that (a) he knows nothing about business or finance or anything else for that matter and (b) he is a prat.
Cameron really would be doing an awful lot better if he lost Osborne.
anon 2:41 agree with you about Osbourne.
The sale of Quinetiq marked the end of this country having any serious indiginous research effort into the country's defence. The Tories started it, their idea of defence in the 80s was to throw filofaxes at the Red Army Tanks. And Labour has continued the destruction.
Quinetiq shrinks as its American owners sell it off or shift the better work to the USA. We revisit the 1930s again. Churchill was the only one then who saw the importance of home-grown defence.
Anon
You are a sole trader on £120k pa and you are £200 better off thanks to income tax changes ? ... Well I `m so relieved for you .Thank you Labour , you have apparently looked after the hybrid car owning £120k pa single dotcom pigtailed Armani suited gibberish-into –mobile-spouting majority and forgotten the minority of the ordinary families with their ordinary cars ordinary incomes ordinary marital state. Well good job Darling you c----.t
And as I way there is a lot worse to come .They always have to bash normal people because they are by definition the only people they can get enough out of
The Council House Grab- Until I crack this high earning tax rebate hybrid car metro-sexual non smoking beer free lifestyle I was wondering since we all own Council houses if I could have my bit in cash now . Failing that I may have to go and live in the lobby of a Northern Rock branch , why not I own that as well.
Jesus I am a Plutocrat when you come to think of it . I may retire.....yeah right when I drop dead and thanks for that New labour as well.
God I hate them.
Hey Shannon has been found alive great ,...I expect that was thanks to the far seeing prudence of Gordon Brown
Time for an over taxed beer in the smoke free pub thats about to shut .. Woopeeeee .
tara
andy.. big businesses spawn small business which, if all goes well, become big businesses which spawn small businesses....
There is still a culture in the UK that "business" is somehow bad.
People don't equate "business" to their jobs, hard to believe but true. The left plays to this constantly, taxing "business" is desirable,they preach, the fact that excessive taxes will cause failure and job loss is never mentioned. Similarly with profits & dividends, all somehow "evil".
In what way has Norther Rock just shot the party to pieces? Most socialists I know, wanted a street party because of NATIONALISATION!!!
Come along here, Iain,New Labour is for broadsheets and broadsheets only, DEEP DOWN, wer're Chinese sympathisers who want to invade Tibet(I think I quote Chris Booker, somewhat correctly more or less).
Northern Rock will come out clean and make us a few quid in the treasury, then it will be sold.
Government should support business by removing the burdens that harm smaller business (biggest employer, biggest energy user,biggest tax supplier,biggest welfare provider etc) by dissolving the dictatorships that bring misery to the beleaguered employer.
VAT penalties is a bone of contention. Totally out of kilter with reality.
Environment taxes: Huh? What has a penguin got to do with, Joe Blogges acid bath co. Ltd?
Business rates: That department is a criminal organisation that should be given life. Life should mean life and not a day sooner.
The way they determine this rate is a total crime.
Vehicle Usage:Drop dead!That is all I have to say on this matter.
Which concentration camp, were you in charge of?(thanks, Ken)
Waste Tipping:Drop dead! That is all I have to say on this matter, P*** ***,you Nazi scum!
Accountants: The more you pay, the more they lie. The less you pay, the less they lie.(work it out a little longer, those of you at the back).
To own a busines in this Country, is to be humiliated and personally abused by every BIG organisation going.I have never yet met any small business person, I did not like or I thought didn't put their heart and soul into making a success of things.
So why do they feel abused?
I know why.
Gary
"andy.. big businesses spawn small business which, if all goes well, become big businesses which spawn small businesses...."
I'm guessing that more small businesses have closed due to the anti-competetive practices of big businesses than have been spawned by big firms.
I'm in favour of "business" as a whole but think it is small businesses which are the lifeblood of our economy but are not going to up sticks and leave if they don't get their way so can get shat on.
Big business spawn small businesses?
What, like the way Tesco has spawned a whole raft of small independent greengrocers?
Big business squeeze their producers with their huge buying power and do the small competitor out of business.
We are losing the ability to run small businsses in the UK, and soon we wil only end up with global conglomerates, which will be as anti the interests of the consumer as communism - as like communism, the big stores will have monopoly control. we will only be able to buy what they want to sell us at the price they want to charge us.
Where is consumer choice in that?
More power to the consumer - less to the multinationals.
Capitalism has to go small again!
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