In an unprecedented weak budget spiked with half truths, Mr Darling is trying to ignite a class war in the UK in an attempt to boost the Labour Party election prospects – a dangerous game to play with our fragile economy at this time.

While any real and immediate public spending cuts are delayed until at least 2011, so not to disgruntle potential Labour voters, higher earners where hit hardest again. Labour is implying a ‘well-off association’ with bankers – who are to blame for this mess – to disguise it’s attempt to ignite a class war to hide it’s total failure on the economic & political front!

Not one word about Labour comp-licitness in our current problems – it was after all our current PM, then Chancellor Brown, who was warned over five years ago of the pending problems with the credit levels in the economy. Yet, the self-declared ’saviour of the world’, did nothing to stop this problem when it was first publicly discussed in the media.

Any attempt to help small business, can at best be described as window dressing, no deference of the re-introduction of the higher VAT rate to 17.5%, which will hit small business hard. It is worth mentioning that Labour is breaking another promise by withdrawing support for the economy before the economy has emerged from recession.

Darling announced another £500mio in an business development fund, another £500mio that will never reach those small businesses that really need this money to survive. His ‘lending guarantee’ signed with the ’state owned’ banks has also not come to anything.

As this government is running out of money and soon people it can squeeze for more tax, the outlook for our economy remains troubling at best. We need many more small business start-ups, which in time will create better and more secure jobs, than any of the big companies ever will.

Early indications via twitter and other online social media is that more and more people thinking about leaving the UK to set up shop abroad. Many saying if Labour is returned to power, they will leave next year!

The Shadow Chancellor Osbourne said ‘Britain is closed for business…!’, a sentiment echoed by more and more small business owners.

All in all this was not a Pre-Budget Report, the was a Pre-Election Manifesto.

Lord Sugar’s – the government’s enterprise czar – outburst last week where he allegedly called small business owners moaners and said:

“I can honestly say a lot of problems you hear from people who are moaning are from companies I wouldn’t lend a penny to. … They are bust and they don’t need the bank – they need an insolvency practitioner”

is an unbelievable insult to all small business owners in this country.

Small business owners were being squeezed by this government even before this recession started, now they have to endure this recession, which was started by the very same people who pay themselves billions in bonuses while asking for more tax payers money (30 billion) to bail them out even further.

As if this was not enough they now have to endure a verbal onslaught of a – in my opinion – half educated and half witted Sir, Lord, Czar or whatever Mr Sugar.

It is this community of small business owners who keep this country together:

• over 50 % GDP is being produced by this sector
• over 50 % of employment is generated by this sector
• over 60 % of innovation comes out of this sector

Given these numbers may I ask what percentage of the money that this government has wasted so far has gone to the SME community? It is most certainly not anywhere near 50%! These ‘moaning’ SMEs have probably paid more in taxes, which then have been used to bail out the banks and the government, than they have received in financial aid.

SME don’t borrow money anymore because they cannot trust the banks and they cannot afford to borrow the money. While the Bank of England has lowered the interest rate to the lowest level on record, the banks have doubled the interest they demand from small business owners, up to almost 20% for certain loans – that is a 19.5% spread.

As I mentioned in my CNBC interview last week, these high interest rates take all the profit margin out of the business that can be done out there. Let me spell it out for anyone who really has not got the picture, businesses go bust because:

• The banks will not lend money to them;
• Even if they lend the money it is so expensive that it takes any profit out of the deal;
• They run out of savings.

I am furious that Sugar is insulting the SME community in this country in this way, like the rest of this government, he has lost any sense of reality. The spin coming out of the Brown government is as unbelievable, as it is insulting to the general public.

Who the hell made Sugar a Lord anyway any why? Sugar certainly is the icing on the government’s cake of incompetence, if nothing else, IMO. -ST.

From today to October 18th is National Identity Fraud Prevention Week – so why should you care?

One of the side effects of electronic commerce is the identity fraud, and as of yet nobody has come up with a secure system to do business electronically. To make electronic transactions as safe as possible requires knowledge of the the problem and some advice on how to behave in certain circumstances and this is exactly what this campaign is aiming for.

You should care enough to read on @ stop-idfraud.co.uk.

China and India are to play a bigger role on the economic world-stage. This development has been under way for a few decades now and this recession has accelerated the trend. This shift is certainly well deserved and needed, as it will help global dialog about global issues. But what does this mean for small business in Europe?

The BBC cites a White House Statement announcing a new role for the G20:

“The G20 leaders reached a historic agreement to put the G20 at the centre of their efforts to work together to build a durable recovery while avoiding the financial fragilities that led to the crisis,” it said. “Today, leaders endorsed the G20 as the premier forum for their international economic cooperation.”

This move represents a clear sign that economic power and influence is moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the disunited Europe is likely to lose out. This going to have an impact on the economic future of Europe’s small business community. The time has come for Europeans to understand our joint interests and for our politicians to finally act in all our interests.

Small business needs access to these emerging economies in the same fashion bigger business is being given access. If this access is not provided we will find one day that all these multinationals have decided to leave good old Europe behind and move to new shores.

SMEs on the other hand will always maintain their national identity and their positive impact for local national economies. This will be the source of jobs and national wealth in all our futures.

I hope our politicians can finally overcome their inability to understand SMEs of all sizes, all our futures depend on it. Time for indecision and failed small business policies is over.

Read more about the G20 summit on the BBC.

Yesterday, Robert Scoble posted “The post iPhone world” – you should go and read this post, it is as scary as it gets. He begins by asking people at Microsoft to imagine a post iPhone world and apparently only gets “blank stares”.

Well Robert, the reason for these “blank stares” is that everyone in Microsoft is just beginning to imagine a post Microsoft world! I told the Microsoft boys back in 1994, that there will be a day when most people will only need “One Window” and not “Windows” – this day is getting closer and closer – and Microsoft seems to have no answers or plans for this world. No constructive discussion about these issues is possible with Microsoft people, they see anyone asking about these issues “literally” as an enemy.

Robert, in my humble opinion, really loses any grip on reality by suggesting Microsoft should rule the twitter sphere and send via its .Net technology and twitter, commands to the hospital intravenous drip machine where his new baby will be born.

Robert, you should check with your wife first – maybe she has never heard about Vista.

Seriously, there is so much wrong with this, that I hardly know where to begin, but her are some of my concerns:

• real-time polling and feedback, unless the twitter client, your IV-drip, can report back, how can you know what really happened,
• would I trust Microsoft to get this right, I guess not, given the fact it can’t get even its own OS right,
• internet security,
• internet reliability in last mile situations,

Our internet protocol has a long way to go, i.e. QOS routing, real time routing, before we can even begin to think about these kind of potentially life threatening remote manipulations.

Sorry Robert, but this is complete wishful thinking in general and for Microsoft especially – let’s try small steps first and get the next OS right. – ST.

PS. Congratulations on your son Ryan, Robert.

Here is the staggering truths, how our Darling-Brown dream team – nightmare team – paid out $2.4 trillion of our tax-money on the UK bail-out, or should I say the UK bank bail out.

We all remember the Darling Brown spin:

Darling-Brown: “We are best placed in this global crisis! We will do what needs to be done”

… and so on. Well here are the facts:

1. UK spend 94% of its GDP on the bail-out,
2. in total just under four times as much as the US, based on GDP
3. equating to over £30,000 ($50,000) per person in the UK
4. five times more than the US ( $10,000 per person @ 25.8% of GDP)
5. UK is the biggest loser and worst placed in this economic down-turn.
6. World-wide – $ 10.8 trillion of which UK – $2.4 trillion, US – $3.6 trillion, $3.2 trillion all the other rich nations and $1.6 trillion by rest of the world.

These numbers show that the UK is the worst affected country world-wide by a almost 4:1 margin.

How some of the money was spend:

• £650 bn – government guarantees to banks against losses,
• £400 bn – “purchase” of assets and lending to banks,
• £200 bn – cash to stop banks from collapsing,
• £290 bn – recapitalization & nationalizing of banks, this is equal to £11,500 per household

TOTAL of over £1.5 trillion directly into banks – unbelievable, staggering – who has been made responsible for this mess?

The government has “borrowed” this money. National debt:

• 2008 – £526 billion
• 2009 – £609 billion
• by 2014 it is predicted to be a staggering £1.37 trillion, the interest alone on this will be £60 billion.

More than half of the spending on the NHS will be just interest payments to cover the national debt and equal to the education budget.

Between 2007 and 2008 our loss in personal wealth has been £31,000 per household. The effects of “quantitive easing” and the unprecedented loss in the value of the £, will increase the pressure on our personal wealth even further.

The effect on all of us, not only Jeremy Clarkson, will be felt for decades to come, our pensions, house prices, the ability to buy foreign goods, travel & holiday – will all be impacted by these follies of a few, including our current government.

How to move forward? What we need is more self-employed, small businesses, home businesses. We need people who understand what it mean to make money. People who understand and care enough to realize when we are being lied too and given the famous Labour spin.

The banks enjoy a special status in our society, they should not be allowed to abuse this status. If they do they need to be asked to repay the damage that they have caused. Not only the loans that they were given, but also all the damage they have caused us personally with their reckless behavior.

If you and I go out and cause reckless damage, we will be ordered by a court to pay for the damage. What is happening here? All the talk is about remuneration for bankers, profits in Q3 and so on. The banks should not make a profit until they paid for the damage they have caused us all.

As for this government, I have no words for the unbelievable spin and deceit of the British population. – ST.

Blogs are a great source of information, especially for small business & home businesses. So many bloggers share their vast knowledge and experience with us all online and for free. Many of these blogs have become an invaluable source of information and insight. Lately however, I noticed a trend that makes it almost impossible to use some of my favourite blogs because of the amount of advertising and the way the advertising is intermingled with the real blog content.

As a blogger I understand that content counts and that it takes time to create this content. I also understand that we can’t live of readers “love” alone and that blogging is a way to earn a living too.

But I would suggest it is a fatal mistake to distort a blog page to such a degree with advertising, that it becomes unusable and a turn-off.

On some blogs you have to run the gauntlet to even get to the content page, first the almost full-page, badly targeted ad for something useless and then a page where you are hard pressed to make out the blog post headline.

I have been to some of my past favorite blogs lately and I was beginning to wonder if there was any content with the headline? I had real trouble piecing together to different bits of the main article because of adds.

I will no longer go to these blogs while they are dominated by adds in this way – maybe RSS could be the answer. – ST.

I was reading one of my friends blog post about a “cool” small business resource launched by AT&T (NYSE: T – AT&T, Inc.). It sounded great and I was intrigued to find out more about it.

As most of you know, I usually don’t write “negative” articles, but after 30 years being a small business guy, this website really got my back up.

As it turns out this is a very bad example of a large corporate trying to offer something in the micro-business market, without really understanding what a small business is and what its needs may be.

The part that really got me, was the “Tips & Tools” section!

Absolutely no content apart from product information and the usual sales spiel. Under the subsection of “Productivity” you will find one(1) – yes no typo, that is one .pdf file – of in my oppinion no more informational value for small business, than putting “collaboration tools” into google and reading the first page headlines only. OK – sorry – that comparison would probably be unkind to Google.

Under the subsection “Starting Up” you will find zero, nothing or in other words no content what so ever. But I have to admit, AT&T is so old and so big, what could they possibly know about starting a business!

To go on with the rest of the website would be a waste of your and my time and an insult. The site was launched allegedly on July 16th, no content – these guys are not even trying? The server was unbelievably slow BTW, but all the sales & product related content was there, surprise, surprise!

I understand that the micro-business and home business sector is the only sector with growth potential left for these big corporations, but they still have a long way to go before they understand how to engage with small business. I don’t think insulting your future customers with these attempts to “pretend small business interest”, other than selling ones product and services, is really a good way to go about it.

If you’re just interested in selling your products and have no interest – IMO as in this case – in being part of the community, then be honest and say so. This would be a better approach for both parties.

Suffice to say, if you are large corporate reading this, have a look at the site as it is a perfect example of how not to do it. – ST.

As the local election results come in, this government is disintegrating in front of our eyes, enormous damage to the democracy of this country is done as voters switch of in resignation, and a never seen level of incompetence is displayed by the cabinet, this prime minister is retreating into fairyland with his reshuffle.

Sir Alan Sugar will take a position of government tzar for enterprise – for those who do not know, a tzar was a totalitarian ruler in Russia and the socialists got rid of the tzar. It’s kind of funny to see this labour government to want to bring them back! What is Sir Alan going to do, he knows nothing about home & small businesses, the backbone of our economy. Hasn’t he got a company to run and a ‘TV show’ to host? Maybe he could fire the PM, that would get his ratings up!

On a more serious note, so far it is clear that Gordon will keep his Darling, despite all that went on with him. I, along with most descent people in UK, must feel like being slapped in the face, or worse by Gordon Brown. The sleaze will go on and this time Gordon Brown is condoning it.

On an even more serious note, this duo will continue with it’s assault on the middle classes and SMEs, to pay for the failures of Brown’s years at the Treasury followed on by his catastrophic performance as a prime minister.

To see how this government has brought this countries financial fortunes down in less than 18 month is staggering:

• Innovative and entrepreneurial people leave the country in droves, taking all their wealth & ideas with them and setting up shop elsewhere.
• The policy of “Quantitive Easing” – is nothing but an attack on the middle classes and SMEs, by redistributing wealth away from the middle classes and SMEs.
• The pound has lost between 30 to 40% against reference currencies, this has nothing to do with a global recession, this is UK government failure.
• The financial services sector in the City is fatally damaged, because this government and especially Mr Brown, did not take action.

The latest policy seems to be the TV celebrity policy, the motto here, ‘If you can’t convince them – entertain them!’ For the sake of this country we need a general election, now more than ever. –ST.

When I sold my ISP business, which was one of the largest pan-european, in 1999 – I knew that the new owners (ultimately TISCALI) where not as passionate about my business as I was, but I always believed that that would change. I was wrong, very wrong!

The disintegration of my old business started almost immediately and ended the other week when Tiscali UK was sold to The CarPhone Warehouse.

Similar scenarios can be followed with the companies of my former peers. When we build the foundation of the internet infrastructure in the UK and across much of Europe we wanted to increase capacity as much as possible and we had passion for this business. But like in so many boardrooms today, there is no passion for services & products, only for the next quarterly results and the bonuses payable to the board members.

IMO, this can be seen, across many other industries too, airlines, banks, insurances to name but a few more. But what is even more shocking, is this UK government’s ‘agenda of underachieving‘:

“….. the report will include a government commitment to provide universal broadband at a speed of 2Mbps by 2012.”

Only 2 Mbps, this is breathtakingly unbelievable, more and more business moves online, over 50% of GDP is generated by SMEs, over 50% of employment is provided by SMEs and more than 60% of innovation comes out of the SME sector. And this government has an agenda to put this country at the bottom of the broadband spectrum in terms of available bandwidth?

Australia, a country so big and sparsely populated, is planning for a 100 Mbps network, our European neighbours are planning similar internet roll-outs. We have an agenda that will further disadvantage UK home businesses and UK small businesses, which are the back-bone of the UK economy.

At least Richard Branson is planning & testing 200 Mbps for the UK market – here you can see what passion does for a business. –ST.