Tag Archive for Politics

Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
With elections coming up on May 6, we’re taking a closer look at the manifestos to help you decide who to vote for.
For those of you in Wales, here is a round-up of the election pledges of each party that are geared towards small business owners.
Labour

Masterplans will be drawn up for towns and high streets, including a register of empty buildings and small businesses given help to move into empty shops
Protect more than 165,000 jobs by providing the most generous business support scheme in the UK
Use the £500m Wales Flexible Investment Fund to support economic recovery and expand the Development Bank of Wales’ patient capital funds to provide long-term lending to small and medium sized enterprises, entrepreneurs and start-ups. Increase the use of equity stakes in business support. Secure the creation of a Community Bank for Wales, supporting its growth so it has 30 branches across Wales over the next decade
Develop a Backing Local Firms Fund to support local businesses. Provide greater support for worker buyouts and, with the cooperative sector, seek to double the number of employee-owned businesses
Change the way people work, rather than commuting to the office every day, will seek

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Scotland election manifestos 2021 – what’s in them for small businesses?

by Anna Jordan • April 23, 2021 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Anna Jordan on Small Business
We’ve got the 2021 election in Scotland coming up on May 6.
To help you decide who to vote for, we’ve summed up all of Scotland’s political party pledges geared towards small businesses.
SNP

Continue the Small Business Bonus, benefiting more than 100,000 businesses. Invest £100m to help SMEs get the right digital skills and equipment
Maintain Business Growth Accelerator which removes rates liabilities for the first 12 months after occupation of previously empty property.
Establish a new £10m fund to allow companies to pilot and explore the four-day working week. Use these learnings to consider implementing a four-day working week as and when Scotland has full control over employment rights. Identify additional employment rights and assess the economic impact of moving to a four-day working week
Create a dedicated Women’s Business Centre to provide financial support, advice and training to women looking to start or grow their business. This will be backed by £50m over the course of the parliament
Create a new, £20m Rural Entrepreneur Fund – this will provide grants of up to £10,000 to support the creation of 2,000 new businesses
Implement the recommendations of the Logan Review to raise our tech sector to world-class status including

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Wales election manifestos 2021 – what’s in them for small businesses?

by Anna Jordan • April 21, 2021 • 0 Comments

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Facebook Wants to Pay You to Deactivate Your Account

by Jonathan Small • September 10, 2020 • 0 Comments

It’s part of an academic study to see how much influence the platform has on the 2020 election.

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6 Important Questions We Should Be Asking About Legalization

by Ryan G. Smith • January 24, 2020 • 0 Comments

From interstate commerce to a long-awaited banking solution, these are the issues that need to be raised.

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Rep. Ayanna Pressley's "People's Justice Guarantee" Is The Most Sweeping Weed Legislation Proposal Yet. But Will It Pass?

by dispensaries.com • December 10, 2019 • 0 Comments

Pressley’s massive criminal justice reform would also decriminalize sex work and end the cash bail system, solitary confinement, and the death penalty.

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How Cannabis Is Shaping The 2020 Presidential Election

by Andrew Ward • August 5, 2019 • 0 Comments

A closer look at where the political winds are blowing.

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Labour small biz minister: ‘Boris just says whatever pops into his head’

by Timothy Adler • July 9, 2019 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Bill Esterson, shadow minister for small business, arranges to meet me at Portcullis House, the ominous-looking building beside the Houses of Parliament.
Once past the beefed-up security (“It’s because of Brexit,” Esterson grumbles), it’s a jolt to see many of the faces you see on the nightly news: over in one corner sits Robert Peston, while Andrea Leadsom and Nicky Morgan sit at others and James Cleverly wanders through waving at people. Clearly, this is the beating heart of Government.
Esterson, 52, became an MP in 2010 having previously run a training consultancy with his wife. Their small business employed 14 people. Then the Financial Crisis of 2008 happened, and their bank called in its overdraft. The Estersons used their savings to repay the bank and pay staff salaries.
“It’s a story I hear again and again from businesses,” he says. “It’s absolutely essential that we put in support and advice and really back our small firms.”
Esterson, who became an MP in 2010 and has been shadow small business minister since 2016, is clearly what used to be known as “a red-hot Socialist” in the old parlance. Passionate about the problems facing small business, once he

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Boris Johnson to fund tax cuts by increasing NI contributions

by Timothy Adler • June 10, 2019 • 0 Comments

Originally written by Timothy Adler on Small Business
Boris Johnson plans to increase the amount both employers and employees pay by way of National Insurance contributions to help fund tax cuts for the well-off.
Johnson, who is front runner to become Prime Minister during the Tory leadership election, has vowed to raise the 40pc income tax threshold from £50,000 to £80,000.
His income tax plan will cost an estimated £10bn, which will also be funded, Johnson writes in today’s Daily Telegraph, by digging in to the £26.6bn which Chancellor Philip Hammond has set aside to cushion against a no-deal Brexit. Given that Johnson is one of the handful of Tory leadership hopefuls open to a no-deal Brexit, politicians have wondered where this cash will come from.
Given that Boris Johnson has called himself a One Nation Conservative – concerned about equality between the rich and the poor – others see the move as breathtakingly cynical and opportunistic, appealing directly to Conservative Party members about to vote in a new leader, many of whom as richer pensioners do not pay NI.
Both Johnson and leadership rival Jeremy Hunt have both pledged to cut corporation tax. Hunt also wants to use the Chancellor’s £26.6bn “fiscal headroom”, in