Iffy MPs & The Phoenix
Monday, May 30, 2011 @ 4:10 PM
You’ll have to forgive me for going off at a bit of a tangent now. We’ve been watching all the political campaigning going on in town over the last few weeks. Two Fridays ago it took about 8 to 10 men all day to put up a stage complete with video screen, lighting & sound system in the church square. In the evening the mayoress took to the stage for a little over a quarter of an hour, before joining the gathered flag waving crowds. We sat at a little bar in the square watching all the proceedings, and it just happened to remind me of the time we had the unfortunate opportunity to meet with our own local MP in the UK. The government had been banging on about a new initiative between themselves & the banks as they were trying to encourage banks to lend more money to small businesses. The deal was something along the lines of the government guaranteeing a percentage of the loan. It was bandied about in the media but when we contacted our bank they really didn’t seem to know anything about the details or the small print. So we decided to contact our local MP to book an appointment. We had a meeting with him in a small office in our local library where he held his morning surgery. What a smarmy ******* sitting behind the desk in his maroon House of Commons tie. Made my skin crawl when I had to shake hands. Yuk, yuk, yuk!! Anyway we asked him about the government initiative but he was more interested in how much we already owed to the banks and our suppliers. He totted up the rough figures that we gave him on a pad. We were horrified by what he then suggested. His advice was that as the company was limited we could close the business down, write off all our currents debts, change the company name (it didn’t have to be a big change for example go from Joe Bloggs Ltd to J. Bloggs Ltd) and start again. He said that he’d recently met with another business in our area and given them the exact same advice. We weren’t surprised then when a rival garden centre closed for business only to open a few weeks later with an one extra letter in their name. One of their ex-employees came to ask us for a job and showed us the proof that our rivals had in fact closed their doors owing nearly £500,000. We also spoke to one rep that had lost all his commission on sales made to the original company but still couldn’t get the stock back because it now belonged to the new company. It’s known as the “phoenix” effect, where one company rises from the ashes of the other. All perfectly legal - of course.
When the MP’s expenses row hit the headlines, we read that our local MP had one of the highest expenses claims in either Kent or in fact the whole country. Didn’t surprise us in the least. Apparently he just had to have a second home in London because he couldn’t possibly commute. Poor man.
