All six of us, and the cat...

I don't normally post my creative writing on my political / campaigning blog, but due to the nature of the piece this was first posted in the other place (to borrow a political term!)
I'm reproducing it here, where it belongs as part of my canon.

All six of us, and the cat...

We sit sipping a latte whilst watching the news
Of kids with no water stood in long queues
Holding their plastic cans and waiting their turns
For ten litres of water whilst the sun, overhead, burns.

We all tut, "how dreadful" and "it's such a shame"
Yet moan that our government sends cash to them in our name.
"Why are we paying them when we need it here instead?"
Demand well-fed citizens snuggling in a warm comfy bed.

"We're only a poor country" is one of our laments
Whilst planning our Summer holidays for kids and parents.
Meanwhile, across the globe in many hundred places
Families starve and children thirst, despair etched in their faces.

Not for them a comfy bed or latte on demand,
Not for them an education and career to be planned;
A place to live and grow without the fear of bombs
And air strikes turning their homes into simple tombs.

A carefree childhood, a happy life, to many is denied,
Whilst aid agencies and peace protesters are derided.
By creating hunger, pestilence or war
Big business and state exploitation is going way too far.

Yet still we sip our lattes in our homes with central heating,
Whilst far away some dissidents endure yet another beating:
Their crime is asking  just for basic human rights,
For speaking out against abuse they face most days and nights.

Religions, states and corporations all must take some blame
For treating people badly, have they no shame?
But are we any better when we constantly complain
About the cost of foreign aid that helps to ease their pain?

Would it be so very bad if we had a fraction less
So others who have nothing can be helped out from that mess?
Do we need ten pairs of shoes when some women have one?
Do we need the latest iPhone when some folks don't have one?

Do we need a gas barbecue or a big double oven
When some must cook on open fires beneath a searing sun?
Do we need that Netflix sub or Sky Sports on the box?
Or could we help our fellow humans eradicate smallpox?

Are power hungry electricals really such a need?
If we each cut back our consumption then would it help to feed
Those hungry refugees in camps where they have fled
In fear of enslavement, or rape or their deathbed;

To get away from air-strikes, bombs and shells
That turned their previous lives into living hells.
Our government caused their misery and pain
Yet we say, "Not giving cash or refuge to them again."

Despite wrecking their homelands for political reasons
We refuse them safe harbour as if they committed the treasons.
We created most of the problems the world faces
And we benefited from them throughout the ages.

Yet when those who are suffering ask for some aid
We look quite affronted or sorely afraid.
That by helping out those with the biggest needs
It will weaken our hearts and make us into weeds.

That simply by showing humanity and compassion
Our nation will be overrun in storm-trooper fashion
By millions of immigrants "all on the make"
Who will claim all our benefits and eat all our cake.

They'll rape all our women and some of the men
And sell into slavery all of our children.
They'll bring all their weird customs, their rites, and their wrongs
And bury us in cous cous and surround us with bongs.

"They don't have our standards" we say to each other
Whilst sipping our lattes and watching Big Brother.
"They come over here and take all of jobs,
"And claim all our benefits - what rotten knobs."

"Use all our roads, our schools and our NHS,
"And leave nought for us born here, oh what a mess."
If we stopped up our borders so no more can invade
And choose with which places we want to do trade,

Then the overseas aid that our government "wastes"
Will help us to prosper and improve our tastes,
And those of us left here will be able to claim
That we're native English and proud of the name.

All six of us, and the cat...

"Why on earth is he suddenly the bloody messiah?"

A friend of a friend on Facebook made the following comment about Labour leadership candidate, Jeremy Corbyn, "He's made no impact in 22 years as an MP apart from campaigning to ban the importation of foie gras. Why on earth is he suddenly the bloody messiah?"

Overlooking the inaccuracy of  the remark "in 22 years as an MP" (he has actually been there for 32 years, maiden speech 1st July, 1983),  I have to say that there is much more to Jeremy Corbyn than just an aversion to pate!

He has one of the highest levels of support from voters in any constituency in the country, and in the recent election managed to increase his majority to around 21,000,  an increase of almost 6% on 2010.  Not many Labour MP's managed that, did they?

He is very aware that the money he spends as an MP on his office, staff and expenses comes from our taxes, and he is as careful with it as he can be, which is why he has one of the lowest expenses records of all 650 Westminster MPs.  He is often seen travelling around London on his bicycle or on the bus, as this is both economical and environmentally friendly.  How many MPs do you meet on the bus?  

His strong advocacy for the rights of women, LGBT persons, and ethnic groups has been in evidence since his arrival in Parliament, and his support for maintaining a publicly funded NHS that provides the best service available free at the point of use goes has its origins in his days as a NUPE full time official. 

He has campaigned on behalf of many victims of miscarriages of justice, and is passionate about protecting the poor, the vulnerable, and our human rights.  Just recently, as one of the 48 Labour MPs who really understand that the opposition party's role is to oppose and not to abstain, he voted against the Tory's Welfare Reform Bill, when the official party line was to abstain.

He has been travelling around to rallies (around 70 of them so far in a matter of 7 weeks), attracting crowds of up to 2,000 people in (and sometimes outside of!) huge venues all round the country,  all of whom are wanting to hear him speak, because what he says resonates with them.

He is connecting with and inspiring people who had walked away from the Party under the Kinnock, Blair, Brown, Miliband leaderships,  and bringing them back to the party, but more than that, he is inspiring a whole generation of youngsters who have not seen anything worth voting for in recent elections and who felt that politics wasn't relevant to them as no-one listened to their points of view anyhow.  He listens.

Thousands of new members have flocked to join, or return to, the Labour Party as full members, registered supporters or as trade union member supporters as they re-engage with the political process, so that the number eligible to vote in the Leadership election is now over 610,000.

Come 12th September the final result will be in, and the party will have a new leader.  Until then, just watch and wait, and take notice of how many people are actually talking about politics again, is this something we can call "the Jeremy effect"? 

Same old, same old... blah blah blah

I keep reading comments, from various Labour MPs, that they will not serve in a Cabinet under Jeremy Corbyn as Prime Minister.  Personally, I think that's incredibly foolish of them to say so, and assumes that they are going to be asked to so serve!

The earliest that a GE should happen would be 2020 and those Labour MPs who are currently griping may lose their seats then, if the voters in their constituencies are as disillusioned with their performance as appears to be the case in many areas. Perhaps if I say Welfare Reform Bill and abstention, it might prick a few consciences!

But something else I have not heard mentioned anywhere is that, with the current resurgence in politics, amongst both the young and the not-so-young, disillusioned electorate, there is a strong chance that there will be a raft of new candidates standing on a traditional Labour values platform, who do win seats and who would be more than pleased to serve in a Corbyn-led Cabinet.

The pinky-blue Labour MPs need to think long and hard about where their true allegiances lie, about the harm they are doing to the people of this country, and whether they are truly representative of Labour values.

And the EU still doesn't get it!

I've just been listening to today's Money Box programme on BBC Radio 4, where Sarah Paine, a UK seller of digital cross-stitch patterns, explained the problems that the new #EU #VAT rules for digital cross-border sales have given her. I entirely sympathise with Sarah - she, like me and many thousands of others across the EU, is a victim of the "unforeseen consequences" as the EU puts it, of the 2015 #VAT rules changes - an issue which the EU VAT ACTION GROUP is campaigning to have amended.

The EU just don't get it! 

I was hugely disappointed in the response to Sarah's concerns that was given by the EU spokesperson, Vanessa Mock, Ms Mock said that no-one had objected before the new rules were brought in despite countries having every opportunity to do so  (she made no mention of how long ago that was and how the internet marketplace has changed in the intervening 6 years) and the statement that there is a "problem with the UK" thus ignoring the fact that sellers in other EU countries are also adversely affected by this (but have not yet been as vocal as we in the UK are, perhaps!)

Are we waving? No, we are drowning! 

The EU, said Ms Mock, will begin a public consultation in September 2015 to see what can be done to put things right. She did not say what EU small digital businesses are meant to do in the intervening months...  are we waving? no, we are drowning!

We have to somehow get the message across that it is not just the UK having a moan at Europe!

That EU people keep spouting forth that "you had ample chance to comment and didn't" totally ignores the fact that the EU is speaking to the UK govt. who DO NOT tell UK residents what is in the pipeline so we, as end users, do not have the chance to comment, or point out where there will be problems or insurmountable difficulties in complying with the new requirements.

How do we get our points of view across to the EU mandarins?

This is one of the big problems with applying EU rules to the UK... the lack of consultation and the lack of feedback between UK citizens and the EU. Yes we have #MEPs but they do not seem to tell us anything.  I cannot honestly remember seeing or hearing an MEP raise an issue which would affect UK businesses, and that is a parlous state of affairs. If MEPs are supposed to represent us, then we need to have more interaction with them in the same way as we can and do with our domestic MPs. Do MEPs have local surgeries at which folks can raise issues?  I have never heard of one in the North West where I live!

So we should tell our MEPs we have a problem, what then? 

I emailed all 8 of the NW MEPs on the 17th May 2015  (via the www.writetothem.com website) about the VAT issue, raising my concerns and asking that they raise the matter with the EU as a matter of urgency.

To date I have had the following responses:

Julie Ward MEP - auto-acknowledgement (18th May)

Louise Bours MEP - brief reply saying, "agree that the EU Vat proposals are not beneficial to UK businesses and they will not support them in any vote. Ultimately of course, UKIP would withdraw from the EU and regain control over VAT, via our own Parliament." (18th May)

Afzal Khan MEP  - auto-acknowledgement (18th May)

Paul Nuttall MEP - no reply whatsoever!

Sajjad Karim MEP -  no reply whatsoever!

Steven Woolfe MEP -  no reply whatsoever!

Theresa Griffin MEP - brief reply saying, "Thank you for your email on the changes to VAT. In order to increase efficiency and productivity, the Labour MEPs for the North West have divided the constituency in terms of casework. My colleague Julie Ward has responsibility for Westmorland and Lonsdale. I have spoken to my colleagues in his office and have asked them to look into your case. They will revert to you shortly." (20th May)

Jacqueline Foster MEP - detailed reply from her office as follows, "Thank you for your email. 
Conservative MEPs have, this week, again called on the EU and national governments to address some of the devastating problems caused by new rules for VAT collection. Mrs Foster is particularly concerned that the so-called Vatmoss rules are driving small-scale online entrepreneurs out of business by obliging them to collect and process VAT payments, even if they conduct only a tiny amount of overseas trade. A recent survey of 2,000 small companies says a quarter now block overseas sales and a fifth have stopped selling altogether. They are no longer earning money - so authorities are collecting no tax at all. Conservatives agree that the easiest solution is an exemption, a threshold, for small businesses.  Tackling Vatmoss requires a unanimous decision by all the EU's finance ministers – but that must happen and happen soon and Conservative MEPs are working with Ministers in the UK Treasury to seek agreement from across the EU." (20th May)

This is a wake up call for the North West's MEP's

It's hardly encouraging, that just three of the eight have bothered to reply! Yet these eight MEPs will no doubt expect me, and others, to vote for them come the next Euro Parliamentary election... but why should I if they cannot even be bothered to listen and respond to legitimate concerns about how the EU's actions is having an adverse effect on my business and the businesses of others like me?

Come on MEPs, do your job and help small businesses out of the #VATMESS that is #VATMOSS by raising the issue within the EU and lobby your colleagues in other countries so we can get a speedy resolution to what is an EU-wide problem, not just us Brits having a moan at the EU again!

We need an Emergency Interim EU VAT Suspension from UK Gov't!

At last week's EU meetings it was made very clear that there would be no immediate help coming from the EU for low-turnover businesses being hit by the new EU VAT rules on cross-border digital sales.

Despite accepting that there has been unfortunate and unforeseen consequences for low-turnover businesses, and that something needs to be done to put things right, the EU mandarins have said it is not going to be considered until the end of the Summer, 2015, at the soonest, and no action will be forthcoming until 2016 at the very earliest.

FOR MANY BUSINESSES THAT IS SIMPLY TOO LATE!

Already businesses are struggling and failing to comply with the evidence requirements for cross-border sales. Add another year to the mix and many more will have closed their doors or stopped digital sales totally.

We have been told that there is something that the UK government can do to help, but we need YOUR help to make it happen.

It is called an Emergency Interim EU VAT Suspension, which basically means the UK government agree to suspend the new rules until such a time that the EU gets its act in order and provides a permanent fix for the mess it has made for micro-businesses.

What we need is for everyone to write to their own MP - you can use this site https://www.writetothem.com/ to contact them by email if it is easier than emailing them directly - and ask your MP to demand an Emergency Interim EU VAT Suspension on behalf of the thousands of small UK businesses that are suffering under this scheme.

Also, if you are a member of a Trade Association, please ask that they lobby the government for the same suspension. The EU VAT Action campaign has this to say about who to lobby and how,

If you are a member of any kind of trade of business association, please write to their Chair today to ask them to support the call for an immediate interim ESC to remove the burden of these rules from micro businesses. Please ask them to contact:

• PM David Cameron
• David Gauke (Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who would have to propose this legislation)
• and Jim Harra (HMRC Director General of Business Tax, who would need to propose this to David Gauke).

Please copy your request to your MP and ask them also to lobby David Cameron, David Gauke and Jim Harra.

Please also ask your industry body to contact any colleagues they have in other industry organisations and trade bodies, to urge them to do the same.

The more people who raise the issue with their MPs the better the chance we have of getting the Emergency Interim EU VAT Suspension, so please do this and help the thousands of us who are struggling to comply with the unintended consequences of this unfortunate EU legislation.

More details can also be found on the EU VAT Action website here .

Why MPs should care about the impact of the new EU VAT rules

Short answer: because 2015 is an election year!

Long answer: We are already being bombarded with candidate flyers, despite being 3 months away from the day, but this made me think about MPs and how (or even if!) they take on board the worries of their constituents, especially if those concerns are at odds with the policies of the MPs political party.

I should say that whenever I have raised an issue with my MP (the LibDem's Tim Farron, Westmorland and Lonsdale ) he has always listened to what I had to say and raised the issue with the relevant dept. or minister on my behalf, so I have no complaints there. It was more an idle wondering, in the wake of the template letters in response to constituents writing to MPs about the EU VAT issue I wrote about yesterday,  as to whether MPs as a whole have really thought about the effect the new EU VAT rules are having, and what this means in terms of the social impact on the country.

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that Britain will come to its knees because small businesses and sole traders have to register for VAT. What I am saying is that there are a lot of people who make a small but adequate income from doing what they do, whether it be selling mp3's of their music, downloadable ebooks, online magazines, creating apps for phones, writing software, doing a bit of website hosting or selling advert space on one to help defray the cost of their own website, licencing photos or graphics for use by others, or even creating patterns for crafters. Those folks may be full-time students earning a bit to help them through uni, they may be parents with young children to look after, they may be carers for elderly or disabled family members, they may be retired and doing something which helps out with the pension, or simply be using their skills to create a product that will never have a big demand but which fills a small niche market.

For whatever reason they are selling digital goods and services online, they are earning a small income, and for many of them that income may be the difference between not claiming benefits and being forced to do so to get by. 

So, if small digital product sellers are being forced out of business by the lack of a sensible threshold for cross-border sales, the country loses out. It loses people who are working and earning, and instead gains people who need to claim financial support benefits. Surely that cannot be a good thing for the UK?  The cost to the country of a population on benefits is surely much greater than the revenue that  would be lost by allowing a sensible cross-border sales threshold for VAT.

Over the past decade or so there has been a lot of encouragement for individuals to start their own businesses. We are told that the digital economy is growing. More and more shopping is being done online. A whole raft of public services are online. We have been encouraged to get online and do all sorts of stuff, and as a country we have done just that, with 89.90% of us with internet access. The latest figures from the Office of National Statistics (.pdf, 482kb) state that there are 4.6 million self-employed and sole traders in the UK. If even 10% of them are selling digital products (and the bottom line is, we simply don't know how many are yet!) that means almost half a million traders are affected by these awful, unworkable new rules. .

So we now have a whole sector of the business population who are being walloped by the EU or put out of business for doing just what our government has encouraged us to do. It's just plain wrong!.

Further reading: Heather Burns writes about web design law, strategy, and what matters to the profession https://idea15.wordpress.com/2014/11/24/how-vatmoss-is-the-end-of-small-enterprise-in-britain-and-how-we-can-change-it/

Is the EU helping or hindering digital companies in Europe?

I have been reading with interest the blog by the EU Vice President, Andrus Ansip, whose aim is stated as "Helping our dynamic digital companies to make the best of Europe" and who seems to be in charge of bringing to fruition the EU dream of the Digital Single Market. To be fair, I quite like the idea of a Digital Single Market too, and I should so love to be a part of it but, alas, I cannot be. 

"Why not?" I hear you ask... my reply is, Red Tape.  

Now Mr Ansip...  (a worrying thought: should I call him Mr, or does he have another title?) ... Mr Ansip has stated that he wants to see Red Tape reduced. That's nice, isn't it? Thank you Mr Ansip, I should like less Red Tape too: it's all about letting businesses get on with doing their biz,  without getting tied up in miles (or as we're talking Europe, kilometres) of the pesky stuff.  Anyhow, he said,  "We should help by cutting red tape for entrepreneurs and smaller companies when they are trying to innovate, with easier set-up, registration and cross-border business rules."

Doesn't that sound good?  I'm all in favour of making it easier for smaller businesses like mine to get going, and sell outside the UK.  I'd love to do it. I want to be an entrepreneur. I'm even trying to learn enough words in other European languages to be able to at least communicate in writing with potential buyers, even if I do have to fall back on Google Translate for the tricky bits!

But I have a problem...  and it's that horrid Red Tape! Specifically, it's that the EU's newly introduced (1st Jan 2015)  VAT rules on electronically supplied cross-border sales are unworkable for me. My shopping cart software can't handle the requirements of multiple prices based on finding out where the potential client is. It can't handle the complexities of zones within countries which have variant VAT rates.  It can't handle establishing the evidence of where the potential buyer actually is before they buy!  It's a simple shopping cart using PayPal as its payment handler, I don't see or retain the buyer's financial details, I don't have their address, I shouldn't even need their real name! My buyer expects to come along, give me an email address, make a PayPal payment, download the product and off they go. Simple! 

Not any more it isn't... now my poor potential buyer is faced with the internet equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition (sorry Spain, nothing personal, I love you really!)  My buyer is made to feel s/he is doing something wrong simply by trying to buy something electronically from me!  The sort of questions the cart is supposed to find the answers to are these...

• Who are you?
• Where do you live? [evidence]
• What's the IP address of your computer / laptop / tablet / smartphone? [evidence]
• What are your bank details? [evidence]
• What country is your phone SIM from? (if using a mobile phone for a purchase) [evidence]
• What is the phone number you are connecting to the internet from?  [evidence]

Having to obtain that information is such a worry. Does anyone else see a problem with this?  

• How about privacy of the buyer? 
• How about data security? 
• How about identity theft?

Europe has some pretty strong data protection laws which are meant to protect our privacy, yet here we are, expected to ride the proverbial coach and horses through those laws to charge EU VAT. It seems to me that the EU left hand has no clue what the EU right hand is doing!

Anyhow, back to that Red Tape, which nice Mr Ansip doesn't like and is trying to save me from,  it now seems to be trying to loop itself around my ankles, tie my knees together, then snake itself all round my body and tie my arms to my sides, until it gets to my neck where it is threatening to pull itself into a very tight knot! 

If like me, you feel that the EU's actions seem to be at odds with its intentions, please would you tell that nice Mr Ansip?  His blog accepts comments, I've left mine (it's awaiting moderation) but I have faith that it will appear soon.  The more of us who point out that we have problems the better the chance of getting some help and changes from the EU. Preferably before that Red Tape kills me, and others like me, off completely!  Here's the link to make it easy to comment: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/2014-2019/ansip/blog/talent-drive-innovation-making-most-europes-tech-startup-potential_en

The EU VAT digital supplier fiasco

Purely by chance I recently came across a mention of a significant change to the EU VAT rules which apply from 1st Jan 2015, to anyone supplying digital services (as defined by the EU). This includes such services as website building, hosting, digital music downloads, digital patterns, ebooks, apps, computer games, and more, and is, so it claims, just a part of the EU's move towards a Digital Single Market.

You might think that, as a registered self-employed person who pays National Insurance and completes an annual tax return to the HMRC, I should have know of this already.  "But how?" I ask. Not one word have I received from HMRC to advise me that the VAT rules for digital supply across borders was to change this year.  Not one letter or leaflet did I have, not one email did I get, nothing, nada, zilch! But despite this knowledge void I am expected to comply with the new rules should I make such digital sales.

As it happens, I do not currently make them, but I had planned to. Those plans are now scuppered. Ebooks, digital scripts, mp3 music, digital patterns are all scrapped as I cannot legally sell them within the EU but outside the UK without charging VAT at the rate in force in the buyer's country. And I have to prove that I have confirmed that the buyer's country claim is accurate, and have not one, but two, independent pieces of evidence to prove it. And, I have to retain that evidence in a secure location for 10 years, having first registered with the data protection office (and paid their fee) so I can hold the data.  So many hoops to jump through!!!

Now it seems to me that it should not have been beyond the capability of the UK government and HMRC to tell me about the changes, especially as my business is currently below the UK VAT threshold, so I have no need to go poke around on their website looking for info I did not know I needed to know! (You might notice that this info was published there on 29th December, 2014 - just 3 days before it came into force!) They even have a handy-dandy flowchart, so you can see if you need to panic or not!

I have heard that businesses who are VAT registered were told in advance (although I don't know how far in advance), which is interesting, as the change affects all businesses who supply digital products across borders within the EU, not just those whose income is above the UK threshold. In fact for cross-border sales there is no threshold!  If you sell a digital product for a penny you must register for VAT and charge VAT on the sale. How mad is that?!

The EU VAT changes seem to have been in the pipeline for some time, with some EU sources stating that we have had 6 years to prepare for this so we should not be complaining that we are not ready!  The fact is that, although the EU has been discussing this for 6 years, detailed guidance on what it means for businesses was only produced very late in 2014, and that many of us still have not been told of the change by any official body, nor have we had any advice or guidance about it.

The huge change (probably the biggest to the VAT system since it was introduced into the UK)  is having a disproportionate effect on sole traders, nano- and micro-businesses, with many of them not being able to comply so they are ceasing trading, or some are carrying on trading in blissful ignorance that they are trading illegally and could be severely penalised when the VAT folks catch up with them. Larger businesses, and those which are currently VAT registered are probably more able to cope with the changes to the rules, but those of us who have never dealt with VAT are at a serious disadvantage and many simply will not survive the process.

There is a campaign (EU VAT Action) to try and get the situation sorted out before small businesses fold, which would cause untold hardship to many who earn small but vital incomes from such businesses. There are also two groups on Facebook - one public (open to view with joining) and one closed (join to read content) - which have lots of information about the changes, how they affect small businesses and where advice may be sought and issued raised. We can also write to our MPs and MEPs expressing concerns, raising individual cases and experiences and adding our voices to the campaign - I am doing this, how about you?