Small Talk from Small Minded People...

 

Two pieces from today's i highlight just how out of touch the Tory government is with reality and its electorate. The first, most obvious and egregious was the one highlighting the delightful comments made by the local Conservative Party chairman of one of the Red-Wall constituency associations, Newcastle-under-Lyme: Graham Hutton. According to this clueless, empathy-free zone of a man, the cost of living crisis is 'overplayed' and "...an awful lot of people who use foodbanks do so because it's free food, and they wouldn't pass on something free."

He suggests that the next PM should focus on small businesses "...that are the backbone of this country." In that simple, factual assertion lies the rub that lends the appalling lie to the Tory claim that they are the party of business. The second piece reinforces the reality of this received fiction. Most small businesses feel marginalized and betrayed by a government that, whilst it stepped up to the plate during the pandemic in instituting various temporary aid schemes including furlough assistance, appears to be dragging its feet when it comes to the financial implosion we are currently experiencing.

A case in point was the woman interviewed on BBC Radio Four, who, running a small fine ceramics business - energy-intensive - saw her fuel bills rise practically overnight from £13,000 per annum to £130,000: an order of magnitude, and a frankly unabsorbable and un-pass-on-able overhead, especially given the tight profit margins of a small business. This situation will be like-faced by practically all small businesses, which form 99.9% of all UK business and turn over slightly more than the large business sector, without the protections of scale, bank & government support and tax-breaks.

Corporates form a fair-sized chunk of the large business sector, and they offshore their profits and avoid tax wherever possible - benefitting from economies of scale and the employment of armies of accountancy and legal firms to minimize their local tax liabilities - let alone taking into consideration the preferential contracts arranged for them via powerful government lobbyists and the old boy network. 

Whilst the odious and blinkered Mr. Hutton is correct insofar as the desperately-needed government support for small business is concerned, he is in the wrong damned party to support it, and left to the government's devices ["...fuck business..." Boris Johnson - attributable, c.f extant published sources, various] in the current crisis, over half of UK business is under severe and imminent threat of closure, the vast majority of that being sole traders and one-person companies, who stump up a huge proportion of UK business and income taxes: where is the logic in that?

The Tory belief that the economy is a self-sustaining artefact of corporate activity, and that the reins of government are best left to the whims and needs of the City and the markets, is such palpable bullshit that it could only be entertained by the privileged, wealthy and deranged: what the voters of the Red-Wall seats were thinking should be the subject of a very interesting psychological treatise on mass delusion and fantasy. Then again, it's not the first time in history that this kind of stuff has happened. I really don't know where we'll be by the end of the summer, let alone the end of next year.

According to the government's own statistics, as published by The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the breakdown of UK business activity in 2021, by size, is as follows:

At the start of 2021: the total

employment in SMEs was 16.3 million (61% of the total), whilst turnover was estimated at £2.3 trillion (52%)

employment in small businesses was 12.9 million (48%) and turnover £1.6 trillion
(36%)

employment in medium-sized businesses was 3.5 million (13%) and turnover
£0.7 trillion (16%)

employment in large businesses was 10.6 million (39%) and turnover £2.1 trillion
(48%)