Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Paco said:

Is there a reason the Scottish Government have had to be bullied into offering 75% grants for business with additional premises, while in England companies can claim 100% of their grant entitlement for each location? Until today Scottish businesses were only allowed to claim for one location, meaning for example pub owners with more than one were disadvantaged in comparison to England (and to be fair still are).

Seems a strange thing to do if the funding has been allocated to the Scottish Government.

I'm with the Scottish Gov on this as there were / are people taking advantage. Someone who owns 18 franchises ISN'T in my book a "small business owner", ok, they may not be Philip Green but they're certainly NOT small.

[dirty dingus]

Piers Morgan slammed for 'bullying' care minister on GMB as Ofcom bombarded with 600 complaints

Nae doubt Piers Morgan is a c**t but he seems to be willing to hold these charlatans to account and keep the 77th Brigade busy.

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

Weekly NRS figures show that 962 deaths in Scotland are linked to Covid-19. 84 hospital deaths in last 24 hours. Approximately 65% of deaths in hospitals, 25% in care homes, 10-15% in people’s homes.
 

Interesting figures in that they reckon a minimum of 40% of care homes have already had the virus.

It makes you wonder how many of the entire population "have already had" the virus.

Once again this confirms that in order to get back to some form of normality we need  a massive increase in testing and then a targeted approach at stopping or at least managing the spread.

[ayrmad]

3 hours ago, Paco said:

Is there a reason the Scottish Government have had to be bullied into offering 75% grants for business with additional premises, while in England companies can claim 100% of their grant entitlement for each location? Until today Scottish businesses were only allowed to claim for one location, meaning for example pub owners with more than one were disadvantaged in comparison to England (and to be fair still are).

Seems a strange thing to do if the funding has been allocated to the Scottish Government.

The funding allocated doesn't allow us to follow the exact same path, the number of businesses per head falling into those brackets will not be the same. 

[coprolite]

22 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

I'm with the Scottish Gov on this as there were / are people taking advantage. Someone who owns 18 franchises ISN'T in my book a "small business owner", ok, they may not be Philip Green but they're certainly NOT small.

Depends how big each franchise is surely? 

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, coprolite said:

Depends how big each franchise is surely? 

No.

According to the UK's Companies Act 2006, a small company is defined as one that does not have a turnover of more than £6.5million, a balance sheet total of more than £3.26 million and does not have more than 50 employees.

Edited April 15, 2020 by WATTOO

[jagfox]

 

[coprolite]

6 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

No.

Yes

[Forest_Fifer]

Yes, my work paid for it prior to going offshore.
Still waiting on the results, before I’m allowed to go tomorrow.

It was a drive up test station at a medical centre in cults, after which I had to drive straight to my hotel and isolate in my room. I’ve spent the last 3 days getting paid overtime, to order room service and w**k.

You're ordering a w**k?

[Guest]

1 minute ago, coprolite said:

Yes

My mistake, too trigger happy and forgot to post the link.

I just feel that if someone has lots of different properties / businesses then they should look to close one or more down if really struggling.

That's what happens in the real world and I think we need to be very careful of handing over taxpayers money to those who are clearly NOT struggling, especially when we still have many of our population relying on foodbanks and charities in order to just survive.

[Granny Danger]

29 minutes ago, dirty dingus said:

Piers Morgan slammed for 'bullying' care minister on GMB as Ofcom bombarded with 600 complaints

Nae doubt Piers Morgan is a c**t but he seems to be willing to hold these charlatans to account and keep the 77th Brigade busy.

I find the man abhorrent but having watched the clip I’m disgusted that people are complaining about him rather than about government ministers not answering fairly innocuous, albeit vitally important, questions. 

[Paco]

I'm with the Scottish Gov on this as there were / are people taking advantage. Someone who owns 18 franchises ISN'T in my book a "small business owner", ok, they may not be Philip Green but they're certainly NOT small.

Relatively fair comment but if we’re willing to pay BA and easyJet’s wage bill (UK Gov, granted), it’s a bit harsh to be refusing to give small grants to a boy who runs a couple of cafes down the High Street.

All that’ll happen is outlets will close, and that doesn’t help anyone in the long run.

[Granny Danger]

Just now, Paco said:

 

Relatively fair comment but if we’re willing to pay BA and easyJet’s wage bill (UK Gov, granted), it’s a bit harsh to be refusing to give small grants to a boy who runs a couple of cafes down the High Street.

All that’ll happen is outlets will close, and that doesn’t help anyone in the long run.

 

Small businesses are also eligible for the furlough scheme.  When qualifying for business rates relief in Scotland the rateable value of all premises is taken into account so the Scottish Government’s position seems a logical follow on from that.

[The DA]

11 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

I find the man abhorrent but having watched the clip I’m disgusted that people are complaining about him rather than about government ministers not answering fairly innocuous, albeit vitally important, questions. 

I'd have had some respect for her if she'd said, 'I agree. We haven't needed them at our fingertips in the past but these figures are now required and I will move heaven and earth to get them published each day'.  Then sent her civil servants off to collate them.

[Paco]

Small businesses are also eligible for the furlough scheme.  When qualifying for business rates relief in Scotland the rateable value of all premises is taken into account so the Scottish Government’s position seems a logical follow on from that.

 

And the furlough scheme will be very welcome indeed to the hypothetical man with his two cafes down the High St, but it doesn’t help pay the two rents unfortunately - grants which would be available to his counterpart in England would.

 

You can’t please everyone of course and as Sunak repeatedly says, the government can’t save every business. But it seemed a strange starting point in Scotland to say the grant only applies to one location which was so out of kilter with the rest of the country. I’m pleased it’s been virtually addressed but was mostly curious as to why it was a policy in the first instance - your rateable value explanation is probably why, so thanks.

 

[Granny Danger]

6 minutes ago, Paco said:

 

And the furlough scheme will be very welcome indeed to the hypothetical man with his two cafes down the High St, but it doesn’t help pay the two rents unfortunately - grants which would be available to his counterpart in England.

You can’t please everyone of course and as Sunak repeatedly says, the government can’t save every business. But it seemed a strange starting point in Scotland to say the grant only applies to one location which was so out of kilter with the rest of the country. I’m pleased it’s been virtually addressed but was mostly curious as to why it was a policy in the first instance - your eatable value explanation is probably why, so thanks.

 

Yeah, the eatable value only applies to the guy with the two cafes.  

Edited April 15, 2020 by Granny Danger

[coprolite]

15 minutes ago, WATTOO said:

My mistake, too trigger happy and forgot to post the link.

I just feel that if someone has lots of different properties / businesses then they should look to close one or more down if really struggling.

That's what happens in the real world and I think we need to be very careful of handing over taxpayers money to those who are clearly NOT struggling, especially when we still have many of our population relying on foodbanks and charities in order to just survive.

Completely agree, i just think that number of premises is a poor measure of that. 

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Paco said:

 

Relatively fair comment but if we’re willing to pay BA and easyJet’s wage bill (UK Gov, granted), it’s a bit harsh to be refusing to give small grants to a boy who runs a couple of cafes down the High Street.

All that’ll happen is outlets will close, and that doesn’t help anyone in the long run.

 

The small business owners should still be able to access the furlough scheme and I believe the one single grant is fair, having said that I don't agree with the big boys being bailed out unless there are severe penalties regarding dividends and exec pay etc.

I still believe that the £2,500.00 per month furlough limit is being ridiculously generous with tax payers money, especially when people working on the frontline are in many cases struggling to breach £1,250.00 per month in their wages for a full month of actually working and not sitting at home watching TV.

It was obviously rushed through, however the Gov are forever telling everyone that the national living wage is in fact a decent wage so WHY was that figure not used ??

Keeping in mind the same people also believe that £90.00 a week on Universal credits is also an adequate amount on which to survive.

[welshbairn]

Beginning to think the stats might trundle along roughly as they are indefinitely until a vaccine comes out. We must be just about hitting the lag time for lockdown measures to take effect, maybe this is the lowest level achievable without mass testing and tracing, or new drugs coming on the market.

[D.A.F.C]

5 hours ago, Tynierose said:

Dukebox is that for fans of Gordon Durie or John Wayne?