Something to make you smile.

Tonight i was talking to a resident after my surgery. It’s based in a local church. And some new flats were finished early last week. The not so funny part,thet were broken into, the funny part the thief  was caught on cctv spent two hours gaining excess to steal a plasma tv. Thats not funny you say, well yes it was the tv was plastic it was the show flat…

Real policies from a party with real ideas.

Business Assistance: Dec 2008 update

What was the situation in October?

Back in October 2008, Nick Clegg, Vince Cable and John Thurso launched our “Business

Assistance Package”. We knew then that the impact of the credit crunch and ensuing

recession will be devastating to British businesses. We called for urgent action to keep the

wheels of the economy turning: maintaining the flow of credit, sustaining business

cashflow where possible, and halting the domino effect where problems with individual

businesses bring on wider collapse.

In October, we called for:

A substantial cut in interest rates

An immediate overhaul and beefing up of the Small Firms Loan Guarantee

scheme

Measures to ensure that the recapitalised banks abide by a new code of

conduct on business lending practices

An emergency summit between energy firms and small business

representatives to look at ways of reducing the burden of energy bills

Measures to ensure small firms are better able to access public procurement

Where are we now?

While the Government prevaricated, the economic situation facing British businesses (of

all shapes and sizes) has only worsened: insolvencies are increasing, redundancies are

being announced every week, and the Government’s assumption that the economy will

begin to emerge from recession by mid 2009 seems improbably optimistic. The problem

facing small businesses is not just the lack of credit, but also a real and prolonged lack of

demand for their goods and services.

In the meantime, the Conservatives have said very little on what new or different policies

they would bring in to help small businesses.1 They refuse to acknowledge the need for a

fiscal stimulus, they are muddled over monetary policy and they have re-hashed old tax

policies (giving tax breaks to employers who take on the long-term unemployed, for

example) which will not help to stimulate demand and will not work in the current

economic climate.

The Liberal Democrats are supportive of much of what the Government has announced

over recent weeks: in many cases it could not have come soon enough (see detail below).

However, we remain committed to ensuring businesses getting the assistance and not to

mention clarity that they need immediately:

1 We are unconvinced that the “National Loan Guarantee Scheme”,