We are the party of enterprise" said David Cameron in his Cardiff speech.He then went on... "So I can announce today that we are taking on the enemies of enterprise.The bureaucrats in government departments who concoct those ridiculous rules and regulations that make life impossible, particularly for small firms.The town hall officials who take forever with those planning decisions that can be make or break for a business - and the investment and jobs that go with it.The public sector procurement managers who think that the answer to everything is a big contract with a big business and who shut out millions of Britain's small and medium sized companies from a massive potential market."
We think 'Call Me Dave' is foorgetting a few things.
Firstly, the financial crisis was caused by failures in the private sector that the public sector had to rescue. RBS and Lloyds were moved from the private sector and are now in the public sector.
Secondly, the spending cuts which reduce local authority budgets are probably going to increase the amount of time that it takes to deal with a planning application. Additionally for these local authorities faced with spending cuts, it makes sense for the procurement officer to try to buy the goods as cheaply as possible which will often mean in bulk from one large, single supplier.
Thirdly, there are not millions of small to medium sized companies being squeezed out by bureaucracy. According to the Department of Business Innovation and Skills estimates for 2009, there were only 1.2 million enterprises with any employees at all in total in the UK. So that claim simply is not true.
Oh yeah, and despite lending the British banking sector trillions of pounds in subsidised money that we pay the interest on (we are borrowing internationally at 3.6% and lending to the 'banks' at 0.5%) these very same banks pointedly refuse to invest in the very same small businesses that 'Call Me Dave' claims to support. That is the lack of investment and hence jobs that he bemoans. Yet he allows the very same bankers complete freedom to pay massive bonuses paid for out of taxpayers money, and engineers financial deregulation in the background to allow even more abuses of our finances.
Even a die hard Tory must be shaking their head in disbelief at this master of the inane and just plain wrong and stupid.
