Elections and the small business

angeldiva

Ok someone, anyone break it down for me...which of the three parties, Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem do you think would be best for the small business owner?

It all seams so complicated.

I want to know, who will help us the most...perhaphs by cutting taxes or giving grants..does anyone have any idea?

Savvy_Sue

It's even more complicated than you think, because some of what is available is at least part funded by the local council, so depends who's in power there as well!

Call me cynical, but I don't actually believe either Labour or Conservative will do what they promise anyway. I spent the first part of my adult life under Maggie, and now it's Tone, and I can hardly tell the difference. So I vote LibDem because they're the only ones who actually want to reform the voting system and give us some kind of proportional representation.

Also remember the small business owner is also like to be a property owner, certainly a householder, and may have children, health issues, adult dependents etc etc etc. I wouldn't make my decision based on what was best for just one aspect of my life!

bridiej

I agree, you need to make a choice for all aspects of your life, and who you think will do good for the country as well as yourself.


I think we actually have a Monster Raving Loony Party candidate standing in our area!

WHA

The present Labour Government simply havn't a clue about how business operates. Hardly surprising since very few Labour MPs and none of the current cabinet have ever run their own business. Most seem to have been from the public sector, often local councils and quangos. It cannot be much of a surprise that they have done precious little to help small business. They just seem to regard small businesses as a "cash cow" to fill their black holes arising from over-spending.

Under the previous Conservative government, which was far from perfect, at least small businesses were generally taxed fairly and were, to a large extent, left alone in terms of pointless bureaucracy and red tape. I seem to remember that a fair proportion of Conservative MPs and cabinet members did have some experience of self employment.

The Conservatives seem to be the only party who would actively encourage small business either through fairer taxation and/or reducing bureacracy. They seem the only party who appear to want to "roll back" some of the more extreme employment laws. The others, whilst having worthwhile goals and objectives, would probably increase business taxation and impose more obstacles to business growth.

When we had a Conservative government, there was a massive growth in private business activity, profits and efficiency. Under Labour, hundreds of thousands jobs have been lost in the private sector, and hundreds of thousands new jobs created in the bloated public sector.

Unfortunately, self employment has a bad press. There is a general perception that the self employed pay less tax, do "cash jobs", earn shed-loads of money for little effort, exploit their workers, rip-off their customers, etc etc.