It’s General Election week, and by Friday morning we might know who’s going to be running the country. Or the way things are going it’s quite likely we’ll end up with a hung Parliament and still have no idea who’s in charge!
TameBay’s own General eBay-lection still has Labour way out in front with 625 listings compared to Conservatives at 308 and Lib Dems trailing (although much improved from last month) at 98 listings.
The Daily Telegraph and eBay have also been running a poll – A “Blind Taste Test” to examine the business policies of the three main parties. Participants discussed and voted on various regulation, tax and business support policies without knowing which party advocated them.
The headline results are that most participants initially thought that Conservatives would be the party to support business, but in the blind taste test they only just scraped the top position with 47% of votes. Labour were hot on their heels with 43% and Lib Dems close behind with 40%. Overall the sentiment was get out of the way, stop meddling with regulations and bureaucracy and let us get on with running our businesses.
You can download the full report on the Blind Policy Taste Test from the eBay Media Center.
7 Responses
I think who ever wins will raise Vat then stand out of the way
How come the country seems to trundle along just fine during the campaigning when no one is running the country??
I was on the panel and if you know me, then you won’t be surprised to learn that the quote in the headline is mine.
It was a very good idea to strip the policies away from the personalities and the histories, but the overwhelming impression was that none of the parties had much of a clue about small business, its concerns and what makes it tick. (Indeed, I think some of the information was news to The Telegraph, too). Disappointing, given that they all suggest it will be us leading the growth out of the recession.
Constant well-meaning tinkering (all of which means increased expenditure) doesn’t help, and the proposed increases in VAT or NI disproportionately hit smaller businesses than larger ones (where Corporation Tax is a big enough issue to see them move offshore).
Make no mistake: When they talk about small businesses pulling the country out of recession, they do recognise that we are sitting ducks in the water when it comes to taxation: unable to offshore or employ creative methods, the full burden of Business Rates, NI, and VAT will fall on our shoulders.
Given how bad politicians are individually and Government is at a whole in understanding what we do in business (and particularly small business) the very best that we can hope for is a Government that does as little as possible and costs us all less.
sod all we can do really , but suffer we cant leg it to Mars , I dont speak French or German, my Italian is ok,but they are in the same boat as the rest of us
Greece is stuffed, Spain is knackered,