GP Leading Plans For Industrial Action Over No 10’s Plan To Boost Face-To-Face Appointments Resigns

The GP leading plans for industrial action over face to face appointments resigned his post at the doctors’ union.

Dr Richard Vautrey will step down as chair of the BMA’s General Practitioners Committee later this month.

His departure came on the day ballots were sent to GP practices across England asking if they would be willing to take industrial action.

Dr Richard Vautrey, a GP from Leeds, has led the left-wing union’s rebellion against the Government’s plans to force family doctors to see more patients in person, but his stand on face to face appointments has been condemned by moderate doctors, MPs and patient groups for being tone-deaf.

On Friday, Dr Richard Vautrey insisted the BMA would not back down over plans for industrial action aimed at reversing the unsustainable workload of GPs, and he accused the Government of adding fuel to the fire by telling doctors to boost the number of appointments they hold face to face.

The latest figures showed four in ten GP appointments were still not being carried out face to face in England this September. For example, over the same period two years ago more than nine in ten were in person.

Health Secretary Sajid Javid last month unveiled a £250 million set of measures to get patients more face to face appointments, including a controversial proposal to name and shame underperforming surgeries.

Despite his militant speech in recent weeks, Dr Richard Vautrey’s surprise withdrawal announcement didn’t mention the recent dispute over patient access.

He said that he’d concluded that the anticipated first meeting of their delayed annual gathering was the right time for a new chair to take on the role. With the need to start preparing for a new contract as they near the fourth year of their current five year agreement, and that a new chair and team needed to be given that opportunity to do this.

Yesterday the BMA launched an indicative ballot of GP practices in England, asking if they support taking industrial action in four principal areas.

These included refusing to go along with the naming and shaming of practices that fail to improve face to face access.

They will also be asked if they will refuse to comply with rules on pay transparency, which would mean GPs getting over £150,000 will be named.

A doctor that doesn’t want to go back to work isn’t any use to anyone, and people are suffering because of the lack of face to face appointments, and being a doctor is no longer a vocation, and countless doctors are now just in it for the money, and it seems that our pets are getting better treatment from vets than we’re getting from our doctors, and it’s about time GP’s stopped hiding behind the COVID excuse and started seeing their patients again.

A doctor who doesn’t want to see their patients is about as useful as a pilot who doesn’t want to fly a plane. No matter how qualified they are, they’re pointless and not worth employing, and the BMA is a Champagne Socialist outfit that long ago forgot the meaning of the Hippocratic Oath.

Our country’s health is in peril and although it doesn’t scare me, I do feel that we’re not safe anymore, and over the last 18 months, I have lost all respect for our GP’s – so much for patient care and well-being.

Crisps In Crisis!

Supplies of crisps including Wotsits, Quavers and ready salted Walkers are set to be disrupted for several more weeks following an IT glitch, raising the possibility of the festive favourites being in short supply this Christmas.

The Leicester based manufacturer said products had been affected by the glitch, adding it was ramping up production of its most popular crisp flavours including cheese and onion and salt and vinegar.

Several products are unavailable on the Tesco website and bare shelves have been seen in some supermarkets, amid a wider crisis across the flood supply chain caused by a chronic shortage of workers and HGV drivers and congestion at global trading ports.

A Walkers spokesperson told a newspaper outlet that a recent IT system upgrade had disrupted the supply of some of their products, but that their sites were still making crisps and snacks but on a reduced scale, and that they were doing everything they could to boost production and get people’s favourites back on the shelves, and they were extremely sorry for the inconvenience caused.

The global supply chain crisis has caused chaos and hampered the UK’s economic recovery,

The global supply chain crisis has caused chaos and hampered the UK’s economic recovery, with shortages on supermarket shelves across the country as well as delayed deliveries and increased prices.

It’s partly caused by the supply being unable to keep up with the rapidly growing demand as the UK economy reopens. Staff shortages, Brexit, COVID and wider economic conditions are also contributing factors.

Across the UK the food supply chain currently has approximately half a million job vacancies, which represents 12.5 per cent of the total workforce needed.

The haulage sector has also been severely affected by the crisis, with the Government promising to recruit thousands of more lorry drivers for the Christmas season.

A shortage of drivers previously delayed fuel deliveries, which sparked panic buying and a week-long fuel crisis.

Jonathan Neame, chief executive of Shepherd Neame, warned of terrific supply chain squeezes’ on the food and drink industry that’s expected to last for the next six to nine months.

Industry leaders have insisted a combination of Brexit and stringent immigration restrictions, plus coronavirus, where numerous foreign workers chose to go home, have triggered the crisis.

Experts said the HGV driver deficit was due to a combination of factors including EU employees returning home after Brexit and lockdown restrictions causing the cancellation of 40,000 HGV tests. They cited inadequate wages and the closure of a tax loophole for some drivers.

The thing is, nobody has ever died from not having Wotsits on the shelves, but empty supermarket racks is a clear sign that Brexit has failed, and, now, it means that there’s going to be less choice for the consumer, and the British economy is going to drive with the handbrake pulled on for years and decades to come.

It means there will be less growth, less investment, and less competitiveness, or are the crisp companies being paid by the media to report a crisp shortage so that we’ll all start panic buying, just like the petrol crisis? And there was me worrying for a moment there that it was something important that would be out of stock.

And I’m sure the world will survive if we never see another crisp again. Mind you when you open a pack of Walkers crisps, you only seem to get a few in there these days – hardly worth even opening the packet.

Prices Of Flights To The US Soar After The Ban On Vaccinated Adults Is Lifted

Families planning autumn and winter trips to America were dealt a blow as it emerged unvaccinated children will have to take three COVID tests.

It means testing bills could add at least £70 per child to the cost of a transatlantic trip when the US opens to British tourists.

The shift in border rules has prompted a surge in demand and the cost of flights.

But in updated travel guidance, Washington said that unjabbed under 18s will have to take a post-arrival test between days three and five.

It’s understood this can be a rapid antigen test, which can cost only £8 in America but could be as much as £30 if shops are out of stock of the cheaper ones.

This is an addition to the pre-departure test in the United Kingdom which must be taken by all tourists within three days of travelling to America.

This can also be a rapid test but must be supervised by a clinician in person or by an online video call, making it about £40.

UK rules mean another test must be taken by day two on arrival back home.

This can be an unsupervised rapid lateral flow test typically costing £20 to £25.

It applies to children aged five to 17 and adults. Vaccines in the UK are only being offered to children aged 12 to 17.

The US is allowing adults in only if they’re fully vaccinated.

Despite the rules, airlines are gearing up for their busiest day of transatlantic flying since America banned British tourists in March 2020.

The demand is driving up the price of flights, and those with British Airways from Heathrow to JFK in New York were £350 on November 7 but £1,319 the next day.

Virgin Atlantic flights rose from £584 to £1,215 for the same days.

In better news, the last seven countries remaining on the foreign travel red list were removed.

It means that, for the first time since February, Britons can go anywhere in the world without facing 11 nights of hotel quarantine on their return.

Numerous people in the United Kingdom have families that live in the US, and who haven’t been able to see their families for two years, and then they were hoping to be able to visit, but most people can’t because of the exponential cost, and it’s a disgrace, and pure greed.

I would have hoped that COVID may have made the world a more compassionate place, but it seems that corporate greed knows no bounds, and corporate greed seems to be in supply and demand now, and every other business is doing it.

And I understand that these airlines have lost billions during COVID and they know that if someone is willing to pay a higher price for a flight then they will charge it.

People haven’t seen their families for a few years now because of COVID, and even though it’s not the fault of the people, greedy airlines think it’s okay to charge enormous amounts of money. This is just pure greed and these airlines need to support their customers because when things calm down eventually, those people will have a choice on whether they want to travel or not.

Although I suppose we should be grateful that the airlines are even still going because they’ve not had much revenue and fuel has increased somewhat, and it seems that COVID is a political virus now and it stopped being a serious medical problem months ago.

Tax Fury Grows Over Tobacco

Smoking bodies have warned that the government’s tobacco tax will hit the most disadvantaged hardest and promote bootlegging, and they said that Rishi Sunak’s plan to increase prices by 88 pence to about £13.60 per pack will leave holes in the wallets of those worst hit by the pandemic.

Smoker’s group Forest blasted the move and insisted it could see a surge in unregulated and counterfeit goods trafficked into the United Kingdom.

The Chancellor’s Budget on Wednesday unveiled the latest tax hike for tobacco, which will see the cheapest cigarette packs increase by 63 pence to £9.73.

He said duty rates on all tobacco products will rise by the Retail Price Index measure of inflation plus 2 per cent.

Simon Clark, director of Forest, told a newspaper outlet that smokers are sick and tired of being targeted every year with above-inflation hikes in tobacco tax.

He said that the majority of smokers come from more disadvantaged backgrounds and that many have suffered financially as a result of the pandemic and shouldn’t have to endure yet another hike in the cost of tobacco at a time when they can least afford it.

He added that raising the rates of tobacco tax will surely promote illegal trade which destroys legitimate retailers and puts customers at even greater risk from unregulated and counterfeit tobacco.

The latest figures show that tobacco smuggling is an industry worth about £2.2 billion a year.

HM Revenue & Customs says that the illicit tobacco market in the United Kingdom has changed significantly since 2000 and that historically it was made up of genuine UK brands of tobacco smuggled from lower-priced EU countries.

And that currently, it’s much more of a mix of genuine UK and non-UK brands of cigarettes, hand-rolling tobacco, counterfeits, and increasingly, illegal whites.

Hand rolling tobacco has also increased due to the Budget, by RPI plus 6 per cent meaning a 30g bag will now cost above £9.02, and the minimum excise tax will go up by RPI plus 3 per cent.

Ministers hope that the move will decrease the number of people smoking, but they were panned on social media following the announcement, with one branding the cost ludicrous.

Others pointed out the cost of cigarettes had been increased while at the same time taxes on some alcoholic beverages such as prosecco and cider were reduced.

Another wrote that the cost of cigarettes had risen again, so let’s not pretend this is about health, and of course, the Government know that numerous people will have to give up smoking, especially the poor, and it’s well known that Government is addicted to tobacco taxes and excises and they just keep wanting more and more, and it will never stop because there will always be something in the pipeline to tax on.

Although non of it makes any sense because the tobacco tax has gone up, but alcohol has been reduced. So, it’s not okay to buy cigarettes, but it’s okay to go out, get bladdered and then come home and beat the hell out of your wife and kids?

Yet there are many people out there that will say that if a person can’t afford to smoke in the first place then they should give up. Does this also mean that when food becomes too costly they should give up eating as well?

Food might be essential, but smoking also lowers stress levels, which can be linked to heart disease, high blood pressure, asthma, obesity and numerous more.

Don’t Swim In Britain’s Rivers

An Environment Agency boss urged Britons to not risk swimming in the country’s waterways amid lingering concern over sewage being deposited into them.

John Leyland, the agency’s chief of staff, insisted rivers were not there for human bathing and were instead for the wildlife and the fish that live within them.

It comes after data released by the EA agency showed that water companies discharged raw sewage into England’s waterways and seas more than 400,000 times last year.

Environmental campaigners have also raised concerns that only 14 per cent of rivers in England are rated in good ecological health and none met chemical standards.

John Leyland spoke during an ITV documentary, looking at water quality following a spike in interest in wild swimming during th pandemic.

During the programme, reporter Joe Crowley asked John Leyland if people should be wild swimming in rivers with evidence of raw sewage being deposited into them.

Mr John Leyland said that the rivers that they have weren’t there for human swimming, and that they were there for the wildlife and the fish that live within them, and that the prevailing regulations require them to try and get the water to a health that’s suitable for that.

And he said that he thought that if they wanted to start talking about water that’s suitable for human health then that was a great discussion to have, but that it was a much bigger conversation.

Questioned if it was a personal risk, he said that he didn’t swim in rivers and he would just urge everybody to use the data and information, and wouldn’t recommend anyone to take that risk.

Campaigners for cleaner waters believe the deterioration in UK rivers was due to raw sewage being deposited there and water companies self-monitoring this since 2010.

The firms carry out their own pollution testing and are expected by the EA, which is the regulator, to report how frequently they’re dumping untreated sewage, but pressure groups say the EA’s enforcement budget has been cut by about two thirds since self-monitoring was drawn into action, meaning monitoring was inadequate.

Guy Linley-Adams, the solicitor for the Salmon and Trout Conservation, said there was no incentive for some to report, adding that it was only human nature and that if you’re a sewage works manager in a small town and your boss in central office is giving you a hard time because the works have been having a bit of a problem and you get the opportunity to tweak it to make it look a tad better, what are you going to do?

The lack of public swimming places in England is a disgrace. Every possible body of water is either fenced off by the council, or too contaminated to swim in, and the Government must sort this problem out.

Government in generations past genuinely cared about the environment, but not this lot, and they don’t want the shareholders to lose their profits, and no doubt Joe Public will be expected to fund the cost of putting it all right by paying higher bills.

The real disgrace is that while water companies have been hoovering up enormous profits to finance shareholder dividend infrastructure investment, which has been compromised, raw sewage is being poured into our waterways and seas around the United Kingdom.

The Middle Class Is Squeezed By Rishi Sunak

Experts said that Rishi Sunak tightened his grip on Britain’s squeeze middle with a Budget that will see it bear the brunt of tax increases for a splurge of public spending.

Experts warned that millions of people will be left worse off under plans unveiled by the Chancellor, with no realistic prospects of taxes falling in the future.

The Chancellor met with resentment over his big-spending economic plan as it was revealed all strata of society will end up paying more in the middle of a cost of living crisis.

Experts said the scale of the spending he announced yesterday would see the state increase to its biggest size since the late 1970s before Margaret Thatcher conducted a decade of reform to bring it under control.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said middle earners would lose an average of £180 per year, and the Resolution Foundation warned that middle-income households, normally defined as those earning around £30,000 a year, would take a huge hit to pay for strong investment decisions in the wake of the COVID pandemic.

It revealed families will pay an additional £3,000 in taxes during Boris Johnson’s premiership at a time of low growth and decaying wage growth, and it warned that the Government is squaring the circle of a smaller economy post-pandemic, but was also planning on spending slightly more with huge tax increases.

And that small tax cuts were announced including business rate discounts, a lower bank surcharge, reduced alcohol duty and yet another fuel duty freeze, but the big picture is of fast-rising receipts.

With National insurance and Income Tax increases which will kick in next April, while Corporation Tax will rise from 19 per cent to 25 per cent the following year.

By 2026-27, tax as a share of the economy will be at its highest level since 1950 (36.2 per cent), amounting to an increase per household since Boris Johnson became Prime Minister of about £3,000.

Higher taxes will mainly fall on middle and higher-income households.

In the meantime, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said that mounting inflation could wipe out any increases in benefits for the worst off.

Rishi Sunak tried to reassure Tory MPs that he intends to cut taxes before the next election after unveiling his Budget, and in a meeting of the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, he said he wanted to use every marginal pound in the future to reduce taxes rather than boost spending, although he’s only doing what Boris Johnson wants, and Rishi Sunak should resign, rather than be a Boris bag carrier.

They should end foreign aid because they can’t afford it and they should be looking after their own instead, but we should also remember that we are just menials and won’t get to have a say.

Although foreign aid is just a drop in the ocean compared to all the billions they’ve wasted on Track and Trace and contracts to their Tory friends and donors because it’s all a diversion, a divide and conquer technique to get those at the bottom all huffing and puffing, but we keep falling for it.

Governments hate people because they’re frightened of us because there’s more of us, that’s why they acted like demi-gods during this pandemic.

Suddenly we have fewer or no liberties and rights, and now we’re seeing our livelihoods destroyed and the economy trashed, and big pharma is making its biggest play since the Spanish Flu, and the green revolution that they want is being acted out now, and we have no choice in it, and if you defy them, they will cut you off, no job, food or shelter, and if you think this won’t happen, then think again.

A British Woman Accuses Her American Daughter-In-Law Of Xenophobia

An American woman was accused of being xenophobic after she refused to try black pudding made by her British mother in law on a visit to the United Kingdom.

The 28-year-old woman took to Reddit to ask if she’d been a jerk for turning down the black pudding, which was made from a 100-year-old family recipe and served as part of a Full English breakfast.

Black pudding’s made from pork or beef blood, with pork fat or beef suet, and a cereal, normally oatmeal, oat groats or barley groats.

The woman, who described the rest of her mother in law’s food as bland, was met with support by a vast preponderance of users, who agreed it had been wrong of the mother in law to make her feel guilty.

British users spoke up to say they’d never tried black pudding, despite being from the United Kingdom.

The woman, who described herself as Indian-American, said she’d been vegetarian until she met her husband three years ago, and they made the journey to the United Kingdom after he reconnected with his biological father, who’s British and lives there with his family.

She continued that the first day they were asked to join them for breakfast at their family home, and his dad’s wife had made all kinds of traditional foods for them and that although the food was bland, she powered through most of them because she genuinely appreciated her hard work and didn’t want her to feel bad.

However, when it was time for them to try their family favourite, she noped out of it because she didn’t want to eat black pudding, and she knew one of the ingredients was blood, and she didn’t want to eat blood and refused because it was just gross to her.

But her stepmother in law tried hard to persuade her to at least try it, as it was a 100-year-old family recipe carried down through generations, but when she didn’t budge, her stepmother in law got offended and accused her of being xenophobic.

Writing in support of the woman, one user posted that blood pudding was great, and that she believed that meat-eaters should give it a wee go, but it was hardly unusual for people to be weirded out by it.

But for someone who was once a vegetarian, to them, the Full English breakfast would be nothing short of murder on a plate, and everyone has different tastes that they will and won’t eat and it’s their preference on whether they eat it or not, and I certainly wouldn’t eat it, no matter what you call it.

However, some people love it and other people don’t but I certainly wouldn’t accuse them of xenophobia.

I’m British and I certainly wouldn’t eat it, and the mother is just ill-mannered, and it’s not xenophobic to refuse to eat something you find disagreeable. I doubt the mother would eat dogs or crickets should she find herself in a place where that’s the norm.

Black pudding is like marmite you either love it or hate it, but no one insists that you eat marmite which has been on our shelves for years, and we should be able to respectfully decline to eat anything we don’t want to eat, it doesn’t have to have a meaning or explanation behind it. If it’s done graciously, then that’s all that matters.

Bullies Post Video Of 12-Year-Old Boy On Instagram

The parents of a 12-year-old boy in Milwaukee have reacted with anger after their son was filmed by tormentors using the bathroom at school, with the video posted on Instagram.

Shameia Harris and Phil Rose told Fox News 6 that their son had been genuinely hurt by the incident at Morse Middle School, and Phil Rose said that his son felt ashamed, disrespected and almost embarrassed of what had occurred.

Shameia Harris added that she was appalled the bullies were permitted to get away with it.

The other children climbed over the stall to film the 12-year-old.

She said you expect them to be in a comfort zone, protected, and that they have too much freedom and access to things that aren’t instructional, and that she was pretty sure he wasn’t the only one that this had happened to, but that if he could be the last, that would be enough for her.

The video was uploaded to a page on Instagram called Morse Fight, where it was seen more than a hundred times. The page now seems to have been taken down, but Fox reported that it highlighted clips of fights in the classroom, corridor and restroom.

Phil Rose said that you don’t think that when you send your children to school you see this sort of stuff going on.

Harris and Rose have filed a complaint with the police, and the school said they were aware of the videos, and had spoken to the pupils involved, and that the school leaders have taken swift action to address the problems, including mediations with students, referring pupils to support staff, reporting insensitive content directly to social networking sites, and communicating and engaging with parents. The school said that they take the safety and well-being of their students seriously and had taken the required steps towards preventing future incidents like this from occurring.

Instagram is owned by Facebook, and how on earth were school fights even allowed on Instagram in the first place? This is just promoting bullying on these pages, and this is just not on Facebook, and if this is what’s going to be on there, it should all be closed down immediately.

Can you imagine if that had been an adult filming, that adult would probably have ended up in prison, and these boys should be treated the same, well, for a short while at least? Or charged with a criminal offence, which this was, because this wasn’t just bullying, this was sexual assault.

Students really shouldn’t be allowed mobile phones during school hours, and without their phones, these children might actually engage with each other and rediscover their humanity and also get some actual work done.

Students are too occupied texting to pay any attention to their lessons, and there really isn’t any need for a mobile phone during school hours, but good luck getting parents on board with that one.

These children and their parents should be sued for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress, and God forbid that you tell a student that they can’t have their phones at school, they would throw a hissy fit.

But when it comes down to it, all social media platforms belong in the dustbin.

I understand that some pupils need their phones so that they can be reached after school to arrange a ride or if plans change, but they should be turned off during the day or put into lockers, and if found on, impounded until the end of the school day.

Test And Trace, The NHS’s ‘World Beating’ £37.5 Billion Program, Was A Waste Of Taxpayers’ Money

A damaging report by MPs claims that the £37 billion NHS Test and Trace service has been an eye wateringly costly mess.

It’s failed to break chains of COVID transmission, prevent lockdowns or allow people to return to a more normal way of life.

The organisation, previously led by former TalkTalk boss Baroness Harding, also had muddled objectives.

Spending on Test and Trace is equivalent to almost a fifth of the 2020/21 NHS England budget.

Just 45 per cent of testing capacity was used between November 2020 and April 2021, and at times as few as 11 per cent of contact centre staff were being used.

Only 96 million lateral flow tests it distributed were registered, and it’s not clear what benefit the remaining 595 million tests have achieved.

The programme was championed by the then Health Secretary Matt Hancock, whilst Prime Minister Boris Johnson described it as world-beating.

Despite committing to decrease consultants, paid an average of £1,100 a day, the service employed more in April 2021 (2,239) than in December 2020 (2,164).

Committee chairman Dame Meg Hillier said that it set out bold ambitions but has failed to accomplish them despite the large amounts launched at it.

Meanwhile, the professor who helped create the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab has said it’s unfair to bash the United Kingdom over high numbers of COVID cases – around 40,000 in a day in recent weeks.

Professor Sir Andrew Pollard said that if you look across western Europe, they have approximately ten times more tests done each day than some other countries.

The damaging report has been published just ahead of Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s Budget, where he will lay out the details of the newly announced £6 billion funding boost for the NHS.

It details how the Test and Trace system failed to hit set targets and that spending on consultants was out of control.

Matt Hancock had promised that the system would enable the Government to circumvent the use of national lockdowns and instead get the contacts of people who had contracted COVID 19 to isolate.

The report also describes how less than half of contact tracers who’d been hired were ever in use at any one time.

It said that NHS Test and Trace had a 50 per cent target utilisation rate for its contact centre staff, but the highest reached was 49 per cent at the start of January 2021 and that this had dropped to 11 per cent by the end of February 2021.

This has quite clearly made certain people extremely rich, and we should start finding out who they are and start recovering those funds from these individuals whilst they can still be traced.

This is what’s commonly known as legalised theft, and this cosy arrangement with the private sector requires a full-scale public enquiry of its own. Perhaps we should deduct the politician’s wages who supported this and had a share in it?

They don’t care because they’ve all made their millions, and the Government should give a full breakdown of precisely what the money was spent on and who really benefited, and there’s even more wastage to come with Boris Johnson’s green plans.

But the Tories have always been inept with our money. Not only do they not fix the roof when the sun shines, they take the roof off because they don’t believe we need it, and Government is appallingly bad at spending taxpayers money, and when they’ve spent it impulsively they want more from us.

Adding The Final Nail To The Coffin

The Chancellor will again delay plans to improve the business rates regime, pushing a nail in the coffin on the high street, and the Government will push back an announcement for improvement a second time.

The commercial property tax has been condemned for high street woes – retail pays a quarter of rates despite making up 5 per cent of the economy.

Helen Dickenson, of the British Retail Consortium, said that every week of delay was a nail in the coffin for high streets as four in five retailers said that they’re likely or certain to close their stores.

A consultation into the broken system ended in September last year, and the Government was supposed to announce its plan at the Spending Review, following a delay from the Spring.

Groups representing high street businesses are now worried the problem has been booted into the long grass, although last night Government sources told a newspaper outlet that ministers have delayed reform until a later date.

They said they’ve not had time to consider how the reform would affect the sector or the long term impact of the pandemic on high streets.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality, said that it’s hugely disappointing because root and branch reform has been promised in two manifestos and was certainly overdue, and that they would urge the Government to grasp the nettle to reform rates to rejuvenate the high street.

She added that without reform, rates relief given to high street firms this year must be extended until longer-term changes were implemented to circumvent a cliff edge of support.

The Government has been reluctant to make important adjustments to a tax that raises £32 billion per year, but the high street has long argued that they’re overtaxed, with retail paying a quarter of all rates despite only making up 5 per cent of the economy.

Rishi Sunak is considering a digital services tax of 2 per cent of revenues to try and level the playing field between the high street and online giants, which could be announced as early as this week, but the measure has been rejected by numerous large retailers, including Marks & Spencer, who say it’s wrong to introduce a new levy on an already overtaxed industry.

They have proposed decreasing business rates by about a third and substituting it with an increase in corporation tax – a tax on a company’s profits.

High street shops are going to be a thing of the past, although they won’t vanish altogether, but they will be transformed, and frankly, there will always be a home for intelligent local retailers because they can offer more reliable customer service, more personalisation, and better localisation, which local retailers usually master key logistics, and many customers will still need a service that online shops won’t be able to give.

This is what the high street of the future will look like.

Imagine a future where the number of shops in Britain’s town centres would have halved, but you could never imagine how swiftly that revolution would come.

The impact of the pandemic in our towns and cities has been seismic, and the negatives of this are and will be visible with store closures, job losses and empty streets. But if the Government show some imagination, they could be turning our urban centres from shopping deserts into community hubs, with shops alongside medical centres, entertainment venues, restaurants and cafes – all the places and sorts of things that people will want to do and go.

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