A government source said that Mr Johnson was pushing for Britain to become a low-tax, low-regulation regime like Singapore.
OK. P³:
There is not a thing in it that is pro-business.
There is overwhelming evidence that business benefits most when there is both regulation, ensuring a level playing field on which to compete exists, and consistency in that regulation that ensures that costs of compliance are minimised.
So, err, why is Singapore richer than Britain?
Singapore businesses probably are more tightly regulated than British ones. Certainly they have tougher views about insider trading and other little financial peccadilloes. After all, everything else is tightly regulated.
But they are unlikely to have stupid regulations.
By the way, I have just realised that the jailed Turkish Sex Cult leader Adnam Oktar is actually Harun Yahya. Time has not been kind. I sort of know him. More “of him” than close friends actually. He is a proper Turkish nut job. A Creationist of the fossil-denying kind. Perhaps a Holocaust denier. And a coke fiend by all accounts.
Still that does not make him the weirdest Turkish cult leader. That would not even be Fethullah Gülen – now resident in the US. Gülen is allegedly to have said that children divert his followers’ attention. So it is anal sex only. No idea if it is true. I feel sorry for half his followers, but I do kind of hope it is.
SMFS – Couple of years ago the press reported about a clothes shop in the Gaza Strip called “Hitler 2” (presumably Hitler 1 went into voluntary liquidation after angry creditors descended on its bunker).
Bloke who ran the shop explained: “The name of the shop is ‘Hitler’ and I like him because he was the the most anti Jewish person”.
Which is something that mildly interests me about Moslem anti-Jewishism: they simultaneously claim the Holocaust never happened while celebrating that it did.
All things are possible with Allah, I suppose.
I take it that the Spud does not need to show evidence. If he says it, it is true. The problem is that regulations get imposed by the big players and work against the small companies
The bigger companies are likely a better opportunity for “sponsorship”. So obviously those are the only ones that matter.
There is overwhelming evidence that business benefits most when there is both regulation, ensuring a level playing field on which to compete exists, and consistency in that regulation that ensures that costs of compliance are minimised.
Businesses benefit when there is rule of law.
Johnson??? What fucking planet is the Spud on? BlueMarxist Greenfreakoid Johnson?? Wants free market, low tax. low reg economy????
With Johnson –WHAT FUCKING ECONOMY will soon be the cry.
“There is overwhelming evidence that business benefits most when there is both regulation, ensuring a level playing field on which to compete exists, and consistency in that regulation that ensures that costs of compliance are minimised.”
That is not evidence for more regulation though is it?
I have not seen any evidence that Bojo is interested in low tax or low regulation. I’m not sure that many of the people either demanding the UK becomes Singapore or denouncing the suggestion know much about the place.
Singapore is a straightforward place to do business; I am not sure it is low regulation but it has nothing like the labyrinthine nonsense of the UK. I do not know, but I am willing to bet its tax code is a lot shorter than the UK’s. And income tax is marvellously low, even lower than Hong Kong.
The government is very active in the economy, via Temasek, although it all seems to be managed more cost-effectively than the plethora of government development agencies and quangos in the UK.
I’m not sure it is much more authoritarian than the UK or Europe these days. It’s COVID oppressions have been no different to the UK’s. Yes, the government uses the libel courts to silence opposition but you won’t lose your job for refusing to use the preferred pronouns of mentalists. You also have the freedom to walk home late at night in perfect safety and the freedom to spend 80-90% of your hard-earned as you see fit.
There is overwhelming evidence that business benefits most
Add ‘big’ before ‘business’ there and he has a point, but certainly not the one he thought he had. Big business loves regulation – they can absorb the mostly fixed costs of compliance far more easily than small competitors, and regulation slows down these more nimble adversaries.
I think Rob nailed it. Those who advocate more regulation generally don’t like entrepreneurs and startups because they upset their carefully constructed apple carts. And these regulated businesses can provide good jobs for former regulators to pad their retirement benefits. Big business doesn’t object to nimble adversaries being hobbled. It also enables their executives to work a shorter day, take more time for golf, and perhaps have a martini at lunch if you can nap in the afternoon. Complacency can be pleasant until someone is able to sneak through the regs and start “stealing” their customers. Aren’t we always hearing from newspapers that Google and Facebook stole their advertisers?
@SMFS – what is it with The Turk and his obsession with the bumhole? I seem to recall the Ottoman armies were feared, not for military prowess, but because after any victory they would celebrate by botty-raping every living creature larger than a dormouse.
Does anyone know if that was a real government spokesman who lives out here in he real world or was it one of those that exists inside Spud’s skull?