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Visited the local Homebase store today to purchase a couple of plants for the garden, managed to navigate the car park without some clown whacking my motor. Into the store, first 3 metres I'm stopped by a sales assistant and asked, "would I like to purchase a fairy cake"? Noticing the flies hovering above I declined and said no. Onto the garden section, picked four plants up and a couple of packets of seeds, back to the checkouts, each of the four checkouts had around 6 customers queuing, no big deal as I don't mind waiting. Customer in front of me has around

For me business is good, came very close 3 or 4 years ago to pulling the plug. But I did change direction in what I did, having spent over 30 odd years in the gas heating industry, I then got into electric heating for numerous reasons this market is taking off. Over the last 18 months I fit around 5 electric heating systems to around 1 gas heating system. The two things that work in our favour is London is such a vast area and currently interest rates are low.

Hi Steve, so how is a business 'Approved' exactly? And does this directory run in conjunction with the 'Trustmark scheme'?

Are you telling me that I can get all my SEO work done for

I think that over the years so much damage has been done to the reputation of pensions, by Government, businesses and investment company's that people tend to run a mile from them. Unless you work for a local authority / Government agency where your pension is paid for by the council tax payers, the chances of you having so much disposable income to invest now for the future are pretty slim and the older you get the more disposable income you need. As they are now moving the goal posts as to when people can retire the idea of investing for a pension to me is off putting. I think I'm, with a lot of people and into bricks and mortar, can always downsize or even move up north if need be. The other thing to consider is, is if your business is doing well, let someone else run it and take a regular income from it.

I've no issues with the increase in the minimum wage, I told the wife she would be getting 12p an hour increase from October and she was over the moon....

So what you're saying then, it is for the state to reduce the rental costs of social housing, rather than employers increasing wages? That will cheer up

The problem you have now is, is that if a job is being offered @

I was 17 and in the forces when she came to power. As soon as she got in number 10 she was as good as her word, everyone in the armed forces got a pay rise. The following year we had the Iranian embassy hostage saga, no nonsense and in with the SAS, six months or so later the Falklands. I think she did great and is definitely one of the greatest Prime Ministers this country has ever had. Ok she wasn't perfect, but then who is? She got people to buy their own homes, you could argue against this from a social housing point of view but it gave people the chance to better themselves, if you worked hard you got rewarded then, now it seems as though its the other way around. I don't believe for one minute that if she was at number 10now we would be having any of the current issues with Europe as we are now, in fact I think she would have called a referendum years ago, we certainly would not have a situation where the Eastern Europeans are working where the British people are not.
She also did a lot for women in employment and gave women something to aspire too, after all if a grocers daughter can become a Prime Minister then there is hope for everyone else. She also lead the way in ending the cold war so Russians and other communist state run countries also have a lot to be grateful to both her, Reagan and Gorbachev for. Because I remember watching countless news programmes where the Russians were queuing up a mile long just to buy a stale loaf of bread. She'll be missed and will go down in history as one of the greatest leaders of all time.... Whatever your political persuasions are she did this country proud...

Have to admit, I'm all for benefit cuts and have been for over 10 years now. I think for many in this country it has become a way of life. For many once they have got themselves into a routine of not bothering to look for work but get out of bed mid morning, switch on the television and that's where they stay all day. I'm not saying everyone on benefits are like this, but quite a few are. As a lad growing up in the 70's your dad would have been ashamed to have been on the dole, not so nowadays. Everyone in this country whether they are currently working or not needs to change their attitude about benefits and what they are their for, there certainly not there to maintain a lifestyle. I fully understand that in certain parts of the country there are no industries to work in and they are in fact living in ghost towns, but they need to be willing to move where the work is and if it means moving several times over a couple of year tough. I'd be even tougher than Ian Duncan Smith, If it was me I'd give a maximum of 6 months benefits to give people enough time to sort out their problems and get back into work. And then stop them completely, I'd also set up free training centres where proper job skills are learnt be it building trades, secretarial skills, catering or any of a dozen other careers, if you lacked basic education skills like reading writing and arithmetic you'd be back in a class learning them, rather than using them as excuse of not being able to get work. Years ago they had Top's and YTS to get people back into work and they worked, ok they were probably costly to run, but they got people back into work. So I think the Government could do a lot more to help via proper educational funded training that leads to a worthwhile recognised qualifications and people who are unfortunate to being out of work need to change their attitudes about what they will or wont do to keep a roof over their heads. As for social housing and the bedroom tax it kind of seems wrong to me as I don't see who apart from the Government gets to benefit from the