the insider Kevin Willis

The rover’s return – but with limited opening hours

Of the many great things i will take from my threemonth sabbatical, alongside stellar ideas like ‘teat out to help out’ (special thanks to those who got in touch to offer seed funding), is the undeniable fact that all we SMEs, trading as Limited companies, were not merely ignored by this government throughout the pandemic. Rather, we were royally shat on from a great height from the lofty towers of parliament.

And before all those self-employed eyebrows are raised in my direction as you look to twitter on about how “we” pay minimal tax so only have ourselves to blame, (while you look out on the financefree vehicle you purchased with the grants that kept coming), please remember that for the most part, it was businesses like these that you relied on to provide you with work, pre-Covid.

Travelling through the school holiday month of August was hell. Literally every pub, hotel, B&B, restaurant and even campsite pitch was booked solid, some through until Christmas! Initially I enjoyed seeing ‘SORRY FULL’ and ‘NO VACANCY’ signs posted along the quaint High Streets I strolled along, as it signified an end to the depressive lockdowns as people looked to travel and give businesses the opportunity to earn money.

However, it soon became apparent that a lot of places were only full because they couldn’t be bothered to open six days a week. One pub I walked into couldn’t accommodate me because they only catered four nights a week, in August! So what happens in November? So help me God, I will explode if I hear one more excuse of “a lot of our staff have been pinged” and/or “due to a lack of staff” as being the reason for them limiting numbers and running a reduced menu.

Turn off the bloody app, as like most things this government has done during the pandemic, it is not fit for purpose. Oh, here’s another great idea I won’t need investment for, how about you appreciate your staff by paying them more than minimum wage over a zero-hours contract, you greedy leeches?

Hotel and bar owners get more TV airtime than those “comedians in a camper van” programmes, and are frequently popping up on low-news days crying on about how they had to ‘let go’ their workers, leaving the owners to bravely struggle through on furlough pay and quarterly handouts.

Yet they still do not comprehend why those same workers haven’t come crawling back begging for their anti-social hours job back. They have been closed for 18 months and now want to work only part time? Can you imagine any chauffeur company not grabbing every single booking available to them in an effort to right the sinking ship as quickly as possible? Utter madness!

Even those great cuckoos over at National Trust and English Heritage are guilty of limiting their properties. Open at 10am (Garden only, Castle opens at 11am) then as soon as I’ve consumed a scone costing four quid they deploy an aged volunteer to follow me around reminding me that Lord and Lady InBred would like me to piss off in half an hour for early closing as per their tenancy agreement.

If any of us at SME Ltd owned a castle we wouldn’t let those eager punters leave! Breakfast served from 7am, then archery, scones, cup of tea, dog kennels while looking round the castle (another business idea of mine), creche, pub, camping in the grounds, cup of tea, half marathon in the grounds, jousting, cup of tea and a game of ‘groom the stool’ for the kids while dad gets the chance to grope a lowly maid in the scullery. Who says history can’t be fun? Lord and Lady Incestuous wouldn’t get back into their East wing apartment until late November.

The British went from a nation of shopkeepers to rule over an Empire the sun refused to set upon. Despite the rumours, I wasn’t actually around then but I’m pretty confident that we didn’t achieve any of this by working part time and shutting early (though some of our methods were, at best, questionable). The Industrial Revolution was instigated from these small islands and the working week was a damn sight harder than “sixteen hours a week, closed on Wednesdays and Sundays!” We, Nicola and I, have had to cut short our travels by a couple of weeks and part of the reasoning for heading back to the land of reliable Wi-Fi and mobile signal early (it might sound a romantic notion to live in an unconnected world but it gets very annoying, very quickly) is because business is slowly returning and we might actually be seeing the green shoots of recovery. Fingers crossed, insh’allah. So, in preparation, we order a brand

Kevin Willis new Mercedes V-Class to keep up with the competition and, if I am honest, because I cannot shift the distinctive smell of camping from my current van despite now owning shares in Febreze. Foolishly I Everyday problems had assumed delivery would be in or around September 1, for the from the operator’s point of view... new plate launch, so was knocked off my seat when told “sometime next year”. Apparently, I missed the news that the world had stopped turning because of the poor Wi-fi connection in North West Wales. And this is my point, during any travels we have attempted in previous years over the duration of our business, our SME, we were always interrupted by customers’ enquiries, drivers’ problems or drunk Russians asking me to put in a call and get them into Ministry of Sound at 2am. We field constant emails that “need an answer ASAP” only for that person to then go missing for three days when we need a response from them. And now the knows-no-boundaries WhatsApp messages sound with impunity. So yes, I employ an accountant to mitigate my tax returns and I do take advantage of lesser-rate dividend payments. But I do so within the law and transparent scrutiny of our tax officials. So I get very frustrated when around 3 million of us have had to personally finance a Bounce-Back loan to survive, not to stay in business mind you, but survive, survive to pay mortgages, car payments and the like. Why? Well I believe it is because we come under the all-encompassing banner of “entrepreneur” so will surely have the wherewithal to work it out somehow? I feel confident enough to speak for all those companies, just like ours, when saying we definitely wouldn’t be closing early or taking days off at the height of the busy season and would never contemplate turning customers away with a ‘SORRY FULL’ notice. Pubs, I am reliably informed, laid off staff, took furlough wages and then grants of up to £55.000 during lockdowns, tax-free and not repayable. That is all we ask! The car hire company LCH, known to many of you, has recently coupled up with that other well-known industry face Ethos Finance to launch a scheme that rents vehicles to chauffeurs as a way for them to build back up enough of a credit score in order for Ethos to get drivers back into vehicles they might have lost or surrendered due to Covid. Brilliant guys, I love it. Sam McCarthy at Tasker insurance who answered my call on a Bank Holiday Monday waving away my apology with a “that’s what I am here for” attitude, thank you. I must also applaud the ingenuity of Castle Point Council, Essex who have taken more business (in the way of registered drivers) from the blood sucking, incompetent TfL, who sit in their ivory tower congratulating each other for ‘clearing’ the polluted streets of London of professional drivers, totally unaware that the same amount of cars are coming into town but no longer funding the coffers of Mayor Khan. These concerns are the perfect examples of the kind of attitude and forward thinking needed to make a business successful. I am inspired and rejuvenated and, NO, I might not be able to get you or your clients into Ministry of Sound any more. But I can however get you a table for lunch at a pub I know as long as it is Wednesday to Saturday, 1 to 3pm (last food orders 2.30) anytime in November. Now to discover how tight the suit is on me… n Kevin Willis runs Chirton Grange, contact@chirtongrange.co.uk