NO wonder some businesses are finding it tough. I run my own small independent company and prefer to support other small local independent businesses whenever possible.

So when I wanted a new kitchen I sought just such a firm and in due course found one supplying the right product at a fair price, around £4,600. Then we hit a snag. They wanted paying 100 per cent up front. I offered to pay a 10 per cent deposit with cash on delivery for the rest.

No dice. I offered to pay 10 per cent up front and to lodge the other 90 per cent with their solicitors, but got the same negative response.

I was peremptorily told: "Sorry, but we take full payment for the kitchens up front so on this occasion we have to say no
to your terms." On this occasion? So on what other occasion is this firm expecting me to offer it terms for my business?

I won't name them; maybe they are struggling and I don't want to make matters worse for them, but I don't need to take such a risk. Twenty years ago, I worked for a fitted kitchens and bedroom firm in Leeds. They wanted 100 per cent payment up front from their customers and went bust owing them a small fortune.

I learned then only to pay on delivery and I would advise all to do likewise, especially in the current climate.

Payment on delivery is also, by the way, the advice of those nice helpful people at West Yorkshire Trading Standards whose opinion I asked just to make sure I wasn't being unreasonable.

They don't think I am and neither, actually, do I.


No laughing matter from comics at top

From: Edward Hopkinson, Holme Court, New Mill, Holmfirth.

THE current economic situation can only
get worse while Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling purport to be the only people
capable of carrying us through the current economic downturn and leading us to financial salvation.

However, speaking to people in business, the general comments given lead me to believe that these two Scotsmen are giving a good impression of the late and great Laurel and Hardy – with one all bluster and the other hopelessly scratching his head. My final conclusion is that, as Private Frazer famously said in Dad's Army: "We are all doomed."

Funnily enough, he was also a Scot.


Stench of MPs' hypocrisy

From: Brian Hardy, All Hallowes Drive, Tickhill, Doncaster.

everyone should feel utter disgust and contempt for those 172 MPs, including Ministers, who rejected moves to tighten the rules on their controversial £24,000 second home allowance, as recommended by the Estimates Committee.

My own MP, the Housing Minister and member for Don Valley, Caroline Flint, was among those determined to keep their snouts well and truly embedded in the Parliamentary trough, while preaching self-restraint for everyone else.

Last year, she was first in the queue when MPs voted to exempt themselves from their own Freedom of Information Act (thankfully aborted by the House of Lords).

By their unprincipled action, Ms Flint and friends ensured that another nail was firmly hammered into the coffin of British democracy. These very same MPs will then have the audacity to complain about the apathy of the electorate for not voting come election time.

The stench of hypocrisy and double standards from such people is overpowering.