Oh No! – Not another General Election…. – Market Matters
I hope you had a profitable Christmas and your mattress is bulging with £10 notes. Don’t forget to declare all your takings to HM Revenue and Customs as they need your support. According to last month’s estimates the national debt is now £830 billion and will hit a staggering £1.5 trillion in 2014/15 before peaking at £1.8 trillion in 2032. UK plc is well and truly maxxed-out to it’s credit limit and for the next decade the UK will be paying more on servicing it’s debt interest than on educating its children. With the Bank of England currently printing the equivalent of £1 billion per day little wonder the value of sterling is falling against foreign currencies. Look at the way the exchange rate for the Pound has fallen against the Euro.
To add another layer of misery to the economic forecast we also have pre- general election promises to endure over the next four months. I’ve got a sneaky feeling Alistair Darling will breathe a huge sigh of relief when he hands the keys to No.11 Downing Street to his successor, which begs the question; what is the successor going to do about the economy?
Enter Mr Phillip Blond – the so-called ‘Red Tory’ and policy advisor to David Cameron appointed to find a Blairite ‘third way’ to develop Conservative party policy. His heretical views include a suggestion that Margaret Thatcher’s free-market model has failed and allowed some UK retailers to gain so much power and influence they are thwarting competition and stifling economic growth. As a starting point he highlighted the ‘hidden subsidy’ given to supermarkets who fail to pay business rates for the customer carparking, which shoppers are forced to use because of town centre parking restrictions.
Making supermarkets pay for customer parking is hardly a new idea. About ten years ago John ‘Two Jags’ Prescott proposed as much when Deputy Prime Minister but he was promptly squashed by the awesome lobbying power of the British Retail Consortium and multiple retailers. David Cameron made another ill-advised attempt two years ago when he suggested shoppers should pay parking charges. He backed-off pretty quickly when outraged party members refused to pay for parking at Waitrose. Phillip Blond seems a bit more subtle and is suggesting a supplemental charge on supermarket business rates. That may go some way towards redressing the unfair advantage out of town retailers have over town centre markets.
But there’s more: Mr Blond has proposed a new Tory Government should “Break up all the big-box retailers” (as happened to the brewing industry in the 70’s) “because in the name of freedom, we have produced economic concentration and monopoly dominance.”
These are exactly the sort of retail policy issues successive Governments have shamefully avoided since 1945. But he has gone further and proposed a Community ‘Right to Buy’ scheme where a local social enterprise would be offered first refusal to acquire and run
local amenities faced with closure. In his words, “For a fair market value, legislation (would) allow local social enterprises six months to put together a funding package to turn a liability into an asset for a transformative local business.” In other words the right for tenants to buy their Council houses would be extended to communities wanting to buy their Post Office and Public library – or their Market Hall? It’s fair to say the UK’s few remaining independent retailers are pricking up their ears but some party members are rushing to distance themselves from such ideas. Particularly so when Blond proposes that residents associations be given the power of ‘pre- emptory budget challenge’ to take over Council budgets and services for themselves.
This is pretty radical stuff so maybe you will get the opportunity to show that Market Manager how to do this job properly. If only bits of this came to pass then it could be a boon for markets and independent retailing, but I can see a few flies in this ointment like the British Retail Consortium and Local Government Association. But I suppose it boils down to who wins the general election and by what majority.
At last month’s National Food Conference in Dewsbury no-one got the opportunity to ask awkward questions of star speaker Rosie Winterton MP, Minster for Local Government. She barely had time to finish her speech before dashing off back to Westminster for a ‘vital vote’. In the interests of fairness I have to say the subsequent question and answer session was equally uninspiring with Roger Williams, shadow Lib. Dem. Minister for food and rural affairs relying on the OFT and Competition Commission to support independent retailers (- you WHAT?). The prospective Conservative Party parliamentary candidate made so little impression I can’t remember his name as did the sensible but dull Green Party candidate. The star of the show was Peter Gott – Food guru, Cumbrian pig breeder and independent retailer – who brought a welcome sense of reality back to the proceedings. I liked him – he swore a bit. He gets my vote.
Jonathan Owen is a director of Quarterbridge Project Management – a specialist consultancy providing business advice and design services to market owners and trade associations. He has a keen interest in the politics of retailing, growing vegetables and eating well.
Market Matters, published in Market Trade News magazine
