Am I the only person in the UK who gets a distinct frisson of terror when the part-timers who purport to run this country start yapping about how to ‘grow the economy’? I may not know a great deal about economics but I certainly have eyes to see the effect of one ineffective raft of economic policies after another as they get washed up on the beach of UK enterprise. Why should I be surprised? After all, look at the guys in the control seat. At the moment we have a wallpaper salesman (although as a trade that’s obviously too grubby for Mr Osbourne to be involved). His predecessor, Mr Darling, was a Timpo toy (you remember, the type with the detachable head and painted on eyebrows). Funny how he’s only found the answers a year or two after he was in charge. Unfortunate that. His predecessor, I have heard variously described as a purveyor of pure (an eighteenth term for dogshit) when proclaiming that he had banished ‘boom and bust’; Brownfinger presumably referring to his ability to turn the UK’s gold reserves into complete shit and, perhaps most puzzlingly of all, Admiral Brown for his ability to order aircraft carriers we no longer have aircraft to put on (that’ll be nice for his constituents, then), he still leads the field. Tragically, the economic cure that these comedians espouse is often worse than the disease.
But you know that, don’t you. If you run a business, have a job or a mortgage; if you are a ‘worker’ in the real sense of the word and not one of mass of ‘takers’ in society, you will already have felt the economy changing. Whilst state employees threaten strike action because their copper-bottom pensions might be effected by government cuts you are probably faced with a future with or little or no pension and the knowledge that you will have to work ’til you drop and pay tax for privilege until your very last working day. You don’t need the politicians to tell you about slowdown because if your trader you’ve felt the economy lurch like an elderly LDV, into a lower gear and then, as each new political initiative fails – regardless of whatever silly name it’s given (what is ‘quantitive easing’?)- grind to standstill.
Orders if they come in are small. Payments are difficult to get. Banks don’t want to lend in case you go bust. This is particularly rich as most of their huge quantities of debt is raised against worthless assets (remember US junk mortgages? They’re still with us) Customers are more difficult to sell to. You cannot blame the decline in your income on racism or class hatred. Try explaining to HMRC inspector that their tax demand transgresses your ‘cultural rights’ or that paying VAT each quarter threatens your family’s existence and see where it gets you. I am sorry to say that the heavy foot steps you hear coming up the garden path do not belong to Dame Vanessa Redgrave as she rushes to your aid. ‘Knock, knock, knock’ is not her catchphrase. The stuff that has just hit the revolving metal of your desktop fan is not a veggie burger recently cooked by a tattooed and dread-locked benefit-hopper called ‘Leaf Green’ (christened Clamidia by hippie parents). Of course, your taxes pay for the hippie parents who now work for a government-funded (of course), environmentally sound (naturally) newt monitoring group while the offspring of the unholy and probably hashish-fuelled union fills in the time between collecting benefit cheques by cruising from one half-arsed, loony tune, crusty-fest to the next. And no one, least of all the navel-gazing bunch of wrist artists previously known as politicians, seem to give a cow’s connection about comparing what each contributes to the economy and what each gets out of it.
Some show organisers are worryingly similar. For example, not fixing something unless it’s broken is headline news over in Moreton in Marsh. One of the better one day shows was ruined this year for a number of traders when they discovered that the organisers had moved them to the opposite side of the show ground. Punters get used to a trader’s location on a site they visit each year. I’ve already had several customers coming out with the expected comments:
‘Oh! We thought you hadn’t turned up.’
‘Oh, we looked in the usual place but you weren’t there.’
‘Here you are! We looked for you earlier but couldn’t find you. Anyway we’ve spent all our money. Why have they put you down here by the car park?’
Why indeed? The organiser’s insistence was the usual self-serving nonsense about ‘You asked for a site by an entrance and you got a site by an entrance’. The ‘hard work’ that goes into organising a show doesn’t extend to thinking about the difference between the members entrance where you used to be (visitors who might buy a GBP400.00 gunslip) and the town entrance (visitors who might buy a GBP4.00 burger) and how this might effect trade. The organisers in their wisdom also put all the clothing stands together ensuring a vicious price war between traders with only a few even turning a profit. One trader, having taken good money, was unimpressed nonetheless. Another said that he failed to cover even his fuel and food on the day’s takings let alone the cost of the stand which, of course, remains as expensive (for a one day show) as ever. No sharing the risk of new layout, then. I imagine that the 2012 Moreton Show may lose a few traders, stung into action, to the Dorset County Show or the other events which fall on that weekend. Can’t imagine taking any serious shooting goods to a show like this anymore.
To be fair, it isn’t all the organisers’ fault. There is a lack of spending out there. It’s the economy. At the Midland this year, I and several customers were surprised at just how easy it was to get onto the site on the first day. Come 8 o’clock on the Saturday, there’s usually a scrum of expectant shooters clutching wads of notes which they’ve squirrelled away just for this event. This wasn’t the case, this year. The Norwich & Holt Zimmerframe Club could have sauntered in without danger onto the showground; only, admittedly, to be mown down by one of the many golf buggies zooming around the aisles.
Surprise gave way to nervousness about the lack of footfall which, in turn, gave way (in a politically correct sense) to ‘concern’ as punters seemed to be reluctant to part with their cash even for the very reasonably priced cups of tea and bacon at the catering vans. I often stock-up on GBP4.00 bacon rolls and GBP1.50 cups of tea and take them home so my whole family can enjoy a cut-price feast. What a treat! I should explain that in Wales, where I live, bacon rolls and tea are both highly valued commodities which often change hands for thousands of pounds. Even today, tea smuggling is a big problem in the valleys of Cynon Rhondda Taff.
‘Concern’ had become bored by now and moved over to allow enough room for good, old-fashioned worry to be allowed a look-in. Traditionally, worry is the last stage before ‘crapping yourself’ about the likely outcome of a show. Given that the BBC weather forecast had spent a week warning people that the rain would be like Satan’s stair rods around Telford, the only people who might have been approaching this stage would have been Colonel Ian ‘Hannibal’ Harford and his redoubtable retainers. But, at 1030 hrs, just when all seemed bleak, and the A-Team’s army fatigues seemed in for a messing, the punters as one reached into their pockets and started spending. Not in huge, banker bonus type amounts, at first; not even in the amounts that one would expect a cabinet minister or a union president to leave as a tip after a particularly good lunch involving a lot of expensive premier cru wines. But slowly and surely, the great British buying public rose to the occasion to haul the traders’ commercial cojones out of the hellfire of insolvency. Modesty is natural British virtue (q.v. Simon Cowell) so even though the final sum didn’t approach takings during a boom year it did ensure that most trader’s domestic pets were safely off the menu.
The first day of the Midland felt poor in comparison to earlier years. However, a survey of the evidence presented to a public inquiry about to be established by the government to run for four years, will reveal that spend for some traders was as good, if not better, than last year. Punters were being more careful about what they bought and wanted to have a look around first. Even the gypsies being escorted from the site on day two were more careful about the choice terms they used to describe their police escort whilst being shown to the main gate. Buyers over the two days had gone for more expensive items even though money is tight. They were making careful decisions about the future and acting accordingly. They wanted quality and stuff that would last. More people were asking where products were made; not from the boring racialist motives but just so they could be sure that if they bought something, it would last. It’s touching when so much manufacturing has been off-shored in recent decades, that punters still want products made in the UK. They look at Germany and the pride that Germans have in German products and they still believe that the UK can cut it.
Is that the answer, then? Have all the economists, senior grade civil servants, part-timer politicians, bankers (Spelling? Ed.) and captains of multinational industry missed the point. Getting Britain spending is a good start to ‘grow the economy’. But UK buyers, when money is tight, want to buy quality. Are they wrong to believe that sort of quality can be found in British goods? It’d take a brave politician to suggest this. It would take a braver politician to propose an economic policy that valued and encouraged its small-scale manufacturing across the UK over and above the financial services and big business. God knows they’ve both had enough help to last them until hell freezes over. How about helping kids into careers making things and selling them to reverse unemployment as opposed to have them stuff deep-fried rat alternatives into a box with chips and push it across greasy counter or work in a call centre ending up deaf and indifferent to human suffering. I know which one I’d enjoy more but for now, I’m off to clock on at the call centre. After all, the bills have to be paid. Now, how does it go again?
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