The Conservatives are not the Party of Enterprise

The perception that Labour is anti-business has no basis. I set up my business when Gordon Brown was Chancellor which benefited greatly from his low corporation tax policies for small business now abolished. Labour's recognises that Small and Medium Enteprises (SMEs) are the bedrock of UK PLC. SMEs are almost exclusively British owned, represent over 50% of UK GDP, and offer a wide range of flexible and skilled employment opportunities. In contrast the Conservative Party has shown total disinterest in SMEs, preferring to offer substantial tax cuts to Large Enterprises. I now pay a higher tax rate on my profits than many well-known multinationals, and am proud to pay my correct share of income tax, unlike some of Labour's critics. As an engineer I am also appalled by the dumbing down of our education system to remove any credit for the skills that are essential to support our innovative base. These include punitive fees for higher education, forcing highly skilled overseas post graduates to leave the country, and in our schools downgrading the value of key subjects such as Design and Technology and abolishing coursework and practicals in assessments. We need a skilled workforce, well practiced in technology and innovation, and demonstrably able to apply those skills to create wealth. The abolition of Regional Development Agencies, who played a major role in promoting the interests of SMEs was the Tories greatest folly. Finally, but not least, the Conservative Party's threat the UK's continued membership of the EU threatens our export markets and demonstrates their total lack of business credentials.

Look to Scotland for NHS reforms that work

2015 has started with a crisis in the NHS, with politicians of all sides claiming they have the solution. Instead of looking at promises, it would be better to consider the effectiveness of Scotland's Community Health Partnerships established by the NHS Reform (Scotland) Act 2004. In contrast to the chaotic and wasteful reorganisation of the NHS in England & Wales, Scotland implemented a geographic based reorganisation, focusing on a Region not a budget head. An important reform was the transfer of Adult Care services from Local Government to the NHS, delivering for the first time a single organisation offering care, be it in hospital or the home. Repeated studies have demonstrated that investment in patient orientated adult care, delivers better health outcomes and costs less.

The NHS Scotland reforms were implemented by a Scottish Labour Government, and have been adopted by the SNP. In the 2010 General Election Labour committed to extend the proven success in Scotland to the whole of the UK with a manifesto commitment to create a National Care Service. That proposal was lost when Labour lost, instead we have the chaos unfolding today in the NHS. Yet it is a policy that would have delivered better health at lower cost.

There is no need to look at promises. Labour created the NHS, and are the only credible political party that can be entrusted with its future success.

Waterloo - the Government air brushes our European Allies from history

The Government has decided to waste our money, during a time of austerity, on minting and giving away 500,000 Waterloo replica medals. Done at a time when the NHS is collapsing, our schools are declining, and National Debt has spiralled out of control under George Osborne.

I wonder if they will they mention on the medal that the winning side was an alliance of British troops and a Prussian Army commanded by Gebhard von Blücher? Von Blucher troops had been defeated by Napoleon only 2 days earlier, but managed to regroup and march to Waterloo - Wellington decided only then to join them in the battle that this medal commemorates. The other allies were Russia, Austria, Spain, Portugal, The Netherlands, various German States, Sweden and Switzerland

I doubt if Cameron will recognise or mention the Allies who fought with Wellington - his spin doctors have decided to air brush all these nasty Europeans out of our history.
 

Conservative Claims to have halved the Deficit - a fake claim on a fake road

The latest Tory poster shows a wonky road ahead, with the claim that they have halved the deficit, and created 760,000 new businesses.

In 2010 all major Parties, with the exception of the Tories said that they would halve the deficit over a single Parliament. The Tories claimed they would eliminate it totally. Their latest claim is wrongly based on measuring the deficit against GDP not the actual cost. In fact the deficit has only gone down by 1/3 in cash terms. But even if their figures are a bit skewed they have failed to achieve what they set out to do - and simply matched what both Labour and Lib Dems said was achievable.

I would also like to know how many of the 760,000 'new businesses' are self employed people who have been forced out of secure work, and instead scrabble for contracts with no job security.

In online comment on this dubious claim by Osborne, it is still being contrasted to the now discredited claim that Labour caused the deficit in the first place. I had hoped that the statement by Mervyn King last week, that this was not true would be the end of that nonsense. Clearly not, as many people still think that Gordon Brown personally sold sub-prime mortgages all over the USA, and caused the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The Conservative Party stubbornly sticks to its prejudices on this matter, and that is why they have failed to tackle the true cause of the defeicit - which is a failure of the banking system.

Like all major advanced nations the UK borrowed heavily to prevent world-wide financial melt-down. In 2010 the UK, thanks to Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, had a lower National Debt than all our major competitors, including Japan, The USA, Germany, France and Canada. That is because for most years national debt fell under Labour, so we started from a position of financial strength.

A brief look at the ONS figures will show that. That is why Gordon Brown is a World Statesman, was short-listed to head the IMF which Cameron blocked, and worked for the world bank. In contrast Osborne and Cameron have no international status at all.

City Link's grand tax avoidance scheme funded the Conservative Party

By making the City Link work-force 'self-employed', Jon Moulton avoided paying millions of pounds of Employer's National Insurance. Now his liquidator is expecting tax payers, whom he short-changed, to pick up the bill for redundancy payments for those staff that he did legally employ. As a major donor to the Conservative Party, who indirectly benefited from City Link's tax avoidance scheme, it is David Cameron's Party who should be picking up the bill.

Benefit Tourism is a myth

Under current rules EU migrants looking for work can stay a maximum of 3 months in another EU country. David Cameron's great plan, which includes INCREASING that time period to 6 months, indicates how misinformed so many Tories and our media are. At least UKIP are honest, they want to stop all migration and could not care less about the fate of the 2.5 Million Brits who have used their freedom of movement to live and retire elsewhere in the EU.

Benefit tourism is also a myth, as migrant cannot claim ANY benefits unless they have worked here, and paid the same taxes to qualify as everyone else. All analysis show that immigration adds to British prosperity. The only credible argument is that the country is overcrowded, but migration is a 2-way process - for many years more people left than arrived, now it is swung  a bit the other way - thankfully for 2 reasons 1) it has made the country more prosperous 2) it has altered the demographics of the UK which without immigration would be an ageing population.

Time for honesty please. By all means leave the EU, and stop all migrants - but accept that that means we will be a poorer country, with an ageing society less able to take care of itself.

Migration Myths

It is interesting to see how misrepresented the immigration issue is. Under EU rules a migrant can only stay in another another EU country for 3 months without fulfilling various criteria - of which there are 4
1) You are in work - i.e. paying in to the system not taking out of it. The majority of British people have repeatedly said that they have no objection to migrants who work and contribute. It is also the reason why migration boosts UK GDP
2) You can support yourself privately - and not 'be a burden' on the host countries benefits system. This is why Angela Merkel won her EU Court of Justice court case to prevent paying German benefits to a Romanian migrant - and why 'benefit tourism' does not exists - and is a fiction created by UKIP and some parts of the media.
3) You are student. Students contribute millions to the UK economy
4) You are a relative of one of the other and they support you
The true problem is not migration - it benefits the UK and migrants contribute to our nations prosperity. It is the failure of Cameron to properly enforce these rules.
Of course there are those who object to EU citizens working here - but the number of such people here almost matches the number of Brits who are in other EU states - that is a load of nonsense too.
Support for EU membership continues to rise - thanks to UKIP and people seeing through their ludicrous claims, and also because no credible business organisation or major political party wants to leave the EU.