Veritas - uncovered
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Ha ha Enterprise week
Entrepreneurs need ministers to stay out of the picture.
By Jeff Randall
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The source of my debilitating condition was reading that Enterprise Week - a campaign to bang the drum for Britain's start-up businesses - had been strongly endorsed by... yes, you've guessed it, the Government.
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Even more hilarious was learning that Alan Johnson, the trade and industry secretary, had told an Enterprising Britain Summit in London on Monday: "We need to back our entrepreneurs, not hamper them. We need to praise them, not knock them."
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Oh, behave! For sheer, unadulterated cheek, this matched the kid who shot his parents and then begged the court for leniency on the grounds that he'd been made an orphan.
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When it comes to hitching free rides on passing bandwagons, few organisations canout perform New Labour. Yet even by the party's own high standards for shameless opportunism, this attempt to bathe in the glow of Britain's wealth creators redefined chutzpah.
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The four business entities behind Enterprise Week are the Confederation of British Industry, the British Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Institute of Directors. Frankly, I'm amazed that they've allowed the event to be hijacked quite so brazenly by a government whose idea of a good day's work is a positive headline in tomorrow's tabloids.
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So, before New Labour's spin-machine sends us home dizzy, let's remind ourselves that only three months ago, a CBI report concluded that this government had missed most of its targets to nurture small businesses.
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The CBI was particularly critical that ministers had failed to build an enterprise culture in the UK, create a positive environment for growth, improve regulation and encourage entrepreneurs in disadvantaged areas.
Of course, it wasn't meant to be like this. In his March Budget, Gordon Brown promised to cut red tape, and offered the prospect of "a light and limited touch" for business regulation. With an election less than two months away, the Chancellor was keen to reassure self-employed workers and fledgling businesses that New Labour was a flexible friend. It sounded good - Brown's patter often does.
The trouble is that you could fit the Treasury and all its fixtures and fittings in the gap between his rhetoric and reality.
Underwhelmed by what Brown has done since for small business, the CBI's director-general, Sir Digby Jones, said recently: "How can an enterprise economy break through when the Government presides over systematic, stifling red tape, a discredited planning regime and a society that becomes more politically correct and risk averse by the day?"
On this theme, the CBI's president, John Sunderland, told his members at last year's conference: "On average, each business in the UK is subject to 85 separate health and safety regulations (many more if rash enough to produce food and drink). It is fair to say that the present regulatory burden is a regressive tax on small business." The British Chambers of Commerce is no less scathing. A report earlier this year, commissioned by BCC and compiled by London and Manchester Business Schools, put the cost to business of 46 separate pieces of legislation introduced by this Government at £15billion a year.
At the time of the report, BCC's director-general, David Frost, said: "As well as the cost, firms tell us that they are spending too long dealing with paperwork, trying to get their heads around each and every regulation."
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No surprise then that the UK Business Barometer, run by the University of Nottingham's Institute of Enterprise and Innovation, found that a quarter of companies questioned had deliberately stopped growing their operations to avoid the impact of New Labour's employment regulations.
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So when you hear ministers blethering on about fostering business at grass-roots level, encouraging young people to start companies and freeing entrepreneurs from the burdens of administration - as the Chancellor did yesterday on BBC television - remember the following: This is a government that knows so little about real enterprise that Johnson's predecessor, the witless Patricia Hewitt, went out of her way to defend MG Rover's "Fab Four", claiming that the risks they had taken (almost nil) justified their rewards (shedloads).
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On the night Rover eventually collapsed, it became obvious to those of us reporting the story that Hewitt's grasp of detail was so weak that she couldn't differentiate between administration, receivership and liquidation.
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This is a government that presides over more than 500 quangos - dubious bodies such as the British Potato Council - at least 100 of which have appeared since New Labour won power in 1997.
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Funded by billions of pounds of taxpayers' cash, they devour the value that is created by risk-taking entrepreneurs. This is a government that thinks it's a good idea for companies to be forced to offer six months' paternity leave, a move that BCC has warned will be "an administrative nightmare". This is a government that threatens to reform our welfare system but continues to fund 2.7m people on incapacity benefit, even though David Blunkett, when he was work and pensions secretary, described the system as "crackers" - and with good reason.
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There are four times the number of people claiming incapacity benefit today than were being paid invaliditybenefit 30 years ago. This is a government that has created battalions of public-sector jobs while imposing cutbacks on our armed forces. Many of these state positions are beyond parody, yet they are paid for, in part, by additional taxes on private-sector businesses, the very enterprises that the Chancellor keeps telling us that he's keen to encourage.
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This is a government that has turned the raising of stealth taxes into an art form. Few politicians in the world could, as Brown did, push up National Insurance Contributions - a payroll tax - and still say with a straight face that business taxes had not been increased.
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If this government's ministers were really serious about promoting enterprise, they would simply get out of the way. No chance of that, though: they might miss a picture opportunity.
¶ Sunday, November 20, 2005 0 comments
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
The revolting French
This blog focuses, as the title suggests on British political issues. Only occasionally do we venture into other nations political issues unless they have a direct baring on the British national scene. The French riots are so horrendous, with 15 cities in turmoil and over 4,000 vehicles burnt that comment is clearly needed.
The biggest explosion of street violence in France since the late 1960's has jolted the country into confronting its failure to include its seven million residents of Arab and African origin in the national French mainstream society.
President Chirac andhis Prime Minister Dominic de Villepin seem at a loss as to how to deal with the current situation both in the short or long term.The situation is both complex and has its roots in the influx of immigrant workers who came to France in the 1950s and 60sfrom the former former colonies in North and central Africa.
In practice France turned its back on the minority immigrants, shunting them into suburban cities denying them access to the so called as censeur social (social elevator) that was supposed to lift immigrants into the mainstreem.
France has always deemed its model superior to the Anglo-Saxon approach of diversity. Clearly the system of 'communarianism' is not all that it is cracked upto be. So far, as is almost traditional in France every 30 years or so, neither the peasants (sorry rural French people) nor the students have joined in the riots. When they do, as is inevitable La belle France will be truly revolting - yet again.
¶ Wednesday, November 09, 2005 0 comments The biggest explosion of street violence in France since the late 1960's has jolted the country into confronting its failure to include its seven million residents of Arab and African origin in the national French mainstream society.
President Chirac andhis Prime Minister Dominic de Villepin seem at a loss as to how to deal with the current situation both in the short or long term.The situation is both complex and has its roots in the influx of immigrant workers who came to France in the 1950s and 60sfrom the former former colonies in North and central Africa.
In practice France turned its back on the minority immigrants, shunting them into suburban cities denying them access to the so called as censeur social (social elevator) that was supposed to lift immigrants into the mainstreem.
France has always deemed its model superior to the Anglo-Saxon approach of diversity. Clearly the system of 'communarianism' is not all that it is cracked upto be. So far, as is almost traditional in France every 30 years or so, neither the peasants (sorry rural French people) nor the students have joined in the riots. When they do, as is inevitable La belle France will be truly revolting - yet again.
Saturday, October 22, 2005
The Sunday Quote - 132
'' We will be slashing prices, improving the food, and reigniting the passion and belief of the British public.''
Simon Heath and Lawrence Wosskow the new owners of the 235 roadside Little Chefs.
High aims indeed. ¶ Saturday, October 22, 2005 0 comments
Simon Heath and Lawrence Wosskow the new owners of the 235 roadside Little Chefs.
High aims indeed. ¶ Saturday, October 22, 2005 0 comments
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
http://cpfc.orgMid week special quote
''I have often been called a Nazi, I don't let it bother me for one simple reason. No one has ever had a sexual fantasy about being tied to a bed and sexually ravished by someone dressed as a liberal.''
PJ O'Rourke
A clasic, spoted on the new forum attached to www.eureferendum.com
¶ Tuesday, August 30, 2005 0 comments
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Veritas: The Quest
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'' Veritas, a dose of silliness which may test the patience and credulity of even the teen crowd.'' A quote from the LA Times not on the UK's newest political party but on a production by the US ABC network called ''Veritas: the Quest'' a controversial series which was cancelled after two episodes because it failed to attract viewers. The plot apparently centred on the activities of the Verities Foundation A '' mysterious brotherhood '' dedicated to ''seeking the truth behind the universal mysteries of history and civilisation''.
The Veritas Party in the UK has already been threatened with legal action by the American computer company of the same name. Which will tie in nicely with the legal papers that are due to be served shortly on Martin Cole by a consortium of those that have been defamed by the expatriate who has been slagging off UKIP activists from his home in Switzerland for far too long. As Churchill once said of Baldwin: '' He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked him self up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.'' How very true of R K-S's chief-of-staff.
¶ Sunday, February 20, 2005 0 comments The Veritas Party in the UK has already been threatened with legal action by the American computer company of the same name. Which will tie in nicely with the legal papers that are due to be served shortly on Martin Cole by a consortium of those that have been defamed by the expatriate who has been slagging off UKIP activists from his home in Switzerland for far too long. As Churchill once said of Baldwin: '' He occasionally stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked him self up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.'' How very true of R K-S's chief-of-staff.
Monday, February 07, 2005
Welcome
What motivates the leaders of Veritas ?
Read on ! 8
Visit the sister blog to this site ' very british subjects ' http://verybritishsubjects.blogspot.com
¶ Monday, February 07, 2005 0 comments
Sunday, February 06, 2005
Michael Phillips
A candidate in the UKIP Elections for the National Executive Committee has asked fellow members to vote for him on the grounds that he supports Robert Killroy-Silk's bid for the leadership of UKIP.
Michael Phillips, the Chairman of UKIP's Milton Keynes Branch since 1998, states in his election address: '' It is simply stark recognition that Robert Killroy-Silk can delever millions of votes to UKIP''.
Michael Philips was on the candidates list for the Euro Elections in Scotland in June. I was at that time not particulary impressed with Mr Phillips's campaigning techniques, but cleary the man has now surpassed his previously low level skills of political understanding.
When we met for the first time in a car park in Perth prior to a campaign planning meeting Mr Philips declined to shake my hand citing the negative exposer that I had on a certain blog site as the reason that I was unworthy. It is amazing how people cannot distinguish the ramblings of vanity fiction writers with obvious facts.
Mr Phillips asks UKIP members to vote for him (or not) on the basis of his support for a change of leadership. Clearly Mr Phillips is about to be given a lesson in truth.
In the meantime I am delighted to welcome my former fellow candidate in Scotland to being 'uncovered'.
Unlike other uncovering Bloggs on this site we keep to the truth.
¶ Sunday, February 06, 2005 0 comments Michael Phillips, the Chairman of UKIP's Milton Keynes Branch since 1998, states in his election address: '' It is simply stark recognition that Robert Killroy-Silk can delever millions of votes to UKIP''.
Michael Philips was on the candidates list for the Euro Elections in Scotland in June. I was at that time not particulary impressed with Mr Phillips's campaigning techniques, but cleary the man has now surpassed his previously low level skills of political understanding.
When we met for the first time in a car park in Perth prior to a campaign planning meeting Mr Philips declined to shake my hand citing the negative exposer that I had on a certain blog site as the reason that I was unworthy. It is amazing how people cannot distinguish the ramblings of vanity fiction writers with obvious facts.
Mr Phillips asks UKIP members to vote for him (or not) on the basis of his support for a change of leadership. Clearly Mr Phillips is about to be given a lesson in truth.
In the meantime I am delighted to welcome my former fellow candidate in Scotland to being 'uncovered'.
Unlike other uncovering Bloggs on this site we keep to the truth.
