Barnsley’s view on ‘partygate’ and betrayal of shops – Jayne Dowle

Whilst Mr Sunak is against imposing increased taxes on online retailers such as Amazon, it is said that Mr Gove is in favour as higher online prices might persuade shoppers to switch their custom to bricks and mortar shops.

Boris Johnson ‘partygate’ defence untenable; trust in Prime Minister is a priority as police intervene – The Yorkshire Post says

It’s also been reported that Mr Gove would like to exempt high-street retailers from paying business rates as part of his levelling-up agenda.

All this cuts little mustard 
with shopkeepers and small business owners, burning with the deep injustice of the Prime Minister and his government closing down town and city centres for months at a time whilst his office squandered money on birthday cakes and barbecues.

Hypocritical doesn’t even begin to cover it. My friend, a confectioner by trade, was aghast when she heard that the Prime Minister was apparently presented with a birthday cake, complete with candles on June 19, 2020, to mark his 56th birthday.

This significant date marks the middle of the worst year of her life, she says. Imagine having a business which relies almost entirely upon people gathering together to celebrate special occasions. Then imagine trying to run that business over long months under a government decree that deems it illegal for more than two people to gather together inside, unless “reasonably necessary” for work purposes. Impossible.

Many of us will have heard about ‘the Covid police’ or even the real police swooping on gatherings they deemed to be breaking the rules. Another friend, a hairdresser, was formally cautioned in May 2020 for nipping into her neighbour’s house to give the children a trim in the kitchen, with the door open.

People really were terrified, both of contracting coronavirus before vaccines were introduced in December 2020 and of getting into trouble with the law. In England, people found to be breaking Covid restrictions could be fined £100 for the first offence, doubling for each further offence up to a maximum of £3,200.

The law, however, led us to some tortuous interpretations. We went to an 18th birthday “party” in September of that year where we were allocated a 20-minute time-slot by the hostess so not to break the “rule of six” at any point. As a senior public servant in the NHS, she upheld this approach as a point of honour.

At my own son’s modest 18th birthday gathering a month earlier, two sets of elderly and be-masked parents sat in splendid isolation either side of the garden, waving at each other across the lawn.

I have to admit that a cake was present at this gathering. However, my friend’s cake-making business had been curtailed immediately when lockdown restrictions were announced in March.

Rather than sit at home with no income and worry herself sick, she found a job in a supermarket. However the experience of losing her livelihood overnight has completely knocked the stuffing out of her confidence. She’s still thinking about whether it’s worth giving up the security of her minimum wage to risk it again.

So much for the reputation of the Conservative Party as the champion of the entrepreneur. What would Margaret Thatcher have made of the mendacious melee now engulfing Downing Street?

“We used to be famous for two things – as a nation of shopkeepers and as the workshop of the world,” she told a meeting of the 350,000-strong National Chamber of Trade in 1975. “One is trade, the other is industry. We must get back our reputation.”

I will never forget what it felt like to visit Barnsley town centre in those first months of lockdown; the shuttered premises, the warning signs, police cars patrolling and the eerie silence punctuated only by loudspeaker announcements urging anyone scurrying to the chemist to go home as soon as possible.

Whatever the outcome of this tussle over taxation, it will not 
be enough to persuade those whose businesses were ruined that Boris Johnson’s government is on their side.

However, Mrs Thatcher might be pleased to know that we do remain a nation of shopkeepers. And this nation of shopkeepers could – and should – bring down the shutters on this government at the earliest electoral opportunity.

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