Remember, remember the fifth of November... A bucket of water. And eye protection and gloves.

See two-thirds of the way down the left hand page of this leaflet, published by BIS and presumably sponsored by The Honourable Guild Of Fireworks Manufacturers & Retailers (click to enlarge):

Rogues' Charter

Sent to me by email (name withheld at sender's request):

I have a small business, I contacted Business Link before Christmas about these loans for businesses Mandleson talks about. Initially my advisor said there was lots of talk by politicians but no one knew what was going on. This was some two months after the announcements.

A few weeks ago I got in touch again on the same subject. Yes, unsecured loans were available under the govt. scheme but the interest rate was a staggering 16%! My advisor suggested my existing bank was a better bet, I contacted them and they had no problems with a loan at base + 4%, however I would have to stand surety.

This suggests to me that a dodgy dishonest businessman could take one of these govt sponsored loans, pay off existing secured debt, pay himself out as much cash as possible and let the company go bust, leaving these debts behind. The mind boggles at the stupidity shown.

I put this to my advisor, he admitted it was a rogues' charter, put together by clueless people who have never run a business in their lives. Some Business Link people realise it's just another quick fix that's destined to blow up in the future.

"What if we Left the European Union?"

Neil Harding has helpfully left a link to this particular bit of propaganda, published by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform:

My responses (FWIW):

"More than half our exports" and "three million jobs"? Wot? Exports and imports account for 20% of our economy. So ten per cent of jobs are in exports and ten percent in imports (i.e. three million each way). If the EU accounts for half our exports, that's only one-and-a-half-million jobs. And ultimately, the EU can't and won't just boycott us, see points 3 and 8 below.

1. "might"? In other words "wouldn't necessarily"

2. Ditto

3. I am a unilateralist. There is no need to negotiate 'bilateral trade agreements'. We will open our borders to all goods that comply with commonsense safety standards. It is mathematically impossible (in the long term) for us to import more than we export - even if France imposes a boycott on UK goods and services, they will end up buying stuff from the countries who don't boycott us. Further, it is quite easy to negotiate a bilateral trade agreement with the whole EU (Lisbon Treaty, Article 7a).

4. "Research"? "Framework programme"? Wot?

5. It is not rocket science to keep the best bits of "consumer protection protection" (for example, cooling off period for doorstep selling etc), we don't need the EU for that.

6. Ditto "workers rights". A sensible legal system has to balance the 'right-to-strike' with the 'right-of-employers-to-sack-strikers' with the 'right-for-consumers-and-taxpayers-not-to-be-held-to-ransome'. A difficult balance, yes, but being in the EU makes this more difficult, and not easier.

7. Ignoring the fact that this is factually and logically incorrect, I do like the inference that "Without us they'd be even worse". And the word 'British' is meaningless in this context. The last time I looked, this country is called "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", there is no such place as "Britain".

8. Yes, being in the EU must have some advantages. But it's not "inward investment" that I am fussed about any more than "outward investment". Let's get our own economy on an even keel first (80% of our GDP is purely internal, 10% is trade with EU and 10% is trade with non-EU) before we worry about "inward investment". What happens if our economy and our businesses are so successful that we don't need "inward investment'? Why shouldn't we be the ones snapping up overseas companies?

9. Wot? Negotiating with whom exactly? Would an American, Chinese, Japanese or Indian business give a UK business less favourable terms (whether buying or selling) if we left the EU?

10. This is factually and logically incorrect. Yes, if we want to export manufactures to the EU, we would have to comply with their standards, no prob's there. But we could choose to impose higher or lower standards within the UK. Again, they use the word "might", in the sense of "it is theoretically possible". As a matter of fact, Norway and Switzerland pay "market access fees" to the EU of a few hundred £ million a year. Seeing as the EU are net exporters to the UK, I am sure that we could beat them down to similar levels, if not even make them pay fees for access to our markets.