Mr Business Secretary, you’re on to a winner, so please don’t mess it up by not carrying things through, or watering things down with some half-baked scheme, or worse, one that involves the existing bunch of crook, who call themselves bankers.
‘Planet recession to Vince – we need help now, so show us your money!’
And if that means finding 40 billion quid to lend out, as has been suggested by the think tank, IPPR, then get it done.
Surely we are more important than the banks? It took hours, not days or weeks to decide to lump loads of cash their way when they were on the brink of collapse.
And let’s be clear here, and this is something that is worrying me, the reason we need a bank for business is because small business, you know the less spectacular but hugely important to the economy-type-of-enterprise, is in need of being reflated (as IPPR term it).
But with the combination of a lack of details, and a lack of cash, I fear this hugely important scheme could be, or even is at this very moment, being hijacked by big business.
They have the financial clout to lower the risk to government, but, of course, by effectively standing guarantor they will want something in return. The end result, if this is allowed to happen, is that the money, once again, will not reach the parts of the economy where it is so badly needed.
So Vince, and whoever else is putting this one together, please don’t sell us and the original idea down the Thames to Canary Wharf, for a couple of weeks of good press, and a few more corporate donations.
Charlie Mullins
Charlie Mullins is the archetypal entrepreneur having started Pimlico Plumbers from scratch and building it into a multi-million pound enterprise. Always opinionated and often controversial, Charlie’s common sense attitude has earned him a reputation as one of the UK's most outspoken entrepreneurs.
