Urgent Election WARNING

Mark Homer rarely shares his views on politics but he feels strongly that it is important to try and highlight what he thinks the result of a Labour controlled government post May 7th will bring...

And I'd love your views here, even if you totally disagree, here it is:

I don’t usually get involved in politics ……

I do however feel strongly that it is important to try and highlight what I think the result of a Labour controlled government post May 7th will bring.

Yes I’m a business owner, yes I’m a landlord, yes I don’t favour higher taxes and less I’m not big on the welfare state and I DO think that economics and the UK economy is the single biggest issue that controls all of our lives (which is why I’m so interested in it) so I’m probably a natural Conservative voter…..and yes I there have a vested interest in seeing the conservatives win.

BUT I deeply believe that we ALL do. 

It’s pretty clear to me that successive labour governments have weakly increased spending massively to gain popular support/votes without properly costing the impact. Each time since the 1970s the conservatives have been voted in following the labour’s spending splurges (that have usually brought the economy to the brick) and had to behave like a set of tough nosed accountants to reduce costs (like they just have done) to get us back into the economic position that we are now enjoying. If we ran our business like labour did pre 2010 we would be bust, the only reason they could go on like that is their ability to borrow….but even this only works for so long as much of Southern Europe is now finding out.

This time it is different though.

Ed Milliband is worse than most of his Labour predecessors- he has a pseudo communist set of beliefs that it seems were formed during his upbringing- his father Ralph Milliband was a Marxist academic. I also think he propagates more BS than the rest of them as he can’t even accept that Tony Blair and his chums put the UK in a perfect position to be one of the most badly impacted countries by the 2008 financial crisis.

Ideas such as rent control (which he is saying he will introduce as the solution to reduce rents rather than actually being serious about building more houses) have been given the thumbs down by every leading economist questioned on the topic.

The idea that the result will be any different to last time this was tried (pre the 1988 Housing Act) the result was a rental market with a huge amount of very poor quality, often dangerous/damp stock because landlords didn’t have incentive to upgrade them due to low rents) belongs back where these ideas where most widely tested: Communist USSR/Russia and China.

Not sure how many people agree with me but this ideology appears to have failed to the extent that these countries have turned their back on these principles and seemed to have done ok since (China!).

Yes politicians ALL speak BS sometimes, frequently don’t answer questions that are put to them and there are elements of the Conservative party that many of us don’t like including myself.

They have however helped to create the fertile soil (yes there are also post recession factors which naturally help rebalance the economy to create this too) that have helped our economy into a position where we are now better off.
Not just for me as a business owner or a landlord but for all those people who believe in working to create a better existence for themselves, but for everyone who believes that the level of luck you enjoy is largely determined by how much determination you put into something.

From a personal point of view they have helped us create 23 new jobs/positions in our businesses since 2010 by encouraging consumers to spend, getting banks to provide us with loans and helped us to create 124 new homes in Peterborough with their more relaxed planning reforms .
Yes we have profited from this…..but so what?

Profit is not a dirty word if the wider community benefits and jealousy won’t increase incomes or put food on the table.

If Labour (Red Ed) get into power and introduce punitive rent controls and reintroduce teams of red tape through the planning process I (and many of our Progressive Community) will slow/stop new property development projects to create new homes meaning higher property prices and less choice for tenants.

Oh yes and when they bang up rates of corporate tax, scare off big foreign investors with their radical nonsense you can be sure that the rate at which we are hiring new people will slow along with almost every other business in the UK.

This will mean less jobs, lower wages and therefore less tax revenue for the government to spend on people /things that deserve it.

The Conservatives are certainly not perfect, but neither is the world we live in. EVERYTHING is a compromise, they just happen to be the best one whichever walk of life you stroll.

…..And by the way, those of you who think UKIP getting us out of the EU (my stepfather being one of them with whom I agree with on most other issues except this one) is going to help our economy think about this: There are 500 million European consumers (the biggest trading block in the world) who will have to pay a lot more for our goods and services if we were to come out of the EU due to the tax and duty that will be mandatorily applied by EU members to our imports into these countries.

Less trade means our businesses will suffer: less jobs, lower wages, we all loose.

Do you really want to put your family’s economic future on the line with this untested (and some well tested with bad results) nonsense?

Vote Conservative.

Mark Homer

Progressive Property

Employer of 45 people (currently creating around 10 new jobs a year)

Peterborough