Today it's Gordon Brown's turn, to appeal to the retail sector, and Retail Week have been granted an exlcusive interview, in which he discusses the Labour's manifesto for retail.
If you don't have a subscription to access the article, a brief synopsis below. Thoughts welcome.
- Retail sales have improved and food inflation is down.
- The temporary VAT cut put money back in the economy when it was much needed
- Small businesses will continue to be helped with schemes like the Enterprise Finance Guarantee and Time To Pay, a cut in business rates and more lending from banks
- We need an NI hike to pay for all this
- Taking money out of the conomy in it's still fragile state is too risky.
Did the temporary 2.5% VAT cut make a difference to trading, did it just add complexity into business processes and eat into profits as many retailers absorbed the eventual increase?
Have small businesses been given sufficent support to open, to flourish, to continue trading during a difficult period?
And most importantly, and the question which has divided opinion the most- is the NI rise a new idea, in order to protect spending at this vulnerable time, or does it constitute a tax on jobs, which will have an impact on employment? Over 100 business leaders, including many well-known retailers such as Sir Stuart Rose have denounced the potential move by Labour as potentially damaging to the economy due to th eimpact it will have on jobs, and have further mocked Gordon Brown's claim that they must have been misled to think such a thing. Yet, a number of the country's leading economists have now publicly come out in favour of the move, in order to protect growth as we exit the most painful recession in recent times... Who is right?
Well I guess, in the words of Channel 4's Big Brother: You Decide. On May 6th
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