Pembrokeshire Young Entrepreuners: Madder than bluebottles in a jam jar! (From Western Telegraph)

Pembrokeshire Young Entrepreuners: Madder than bluebottles in a jam jar!

5:54pm Wednesday 24th June 2009

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Young Entrepreneurs in Pembrokeshire: madder than bluebottles in a jam jar.

Yesterday, I wrote about the scandal of young entrepreneurs and their shameful treatment. A subject on which I know little but I am now getting a crash course from the front line. It makes painful reading.

The Western Telegraph is a civilised and temperate forum but yesterday’s comments from me provoked outrage from some of their readers.

Here is one that I am able to print: “Good rant! You know they are actually withdrawing help for small businesses at the moment. I was told I could get a "business transformation grant". Applying for it would involve at lot of work but you could supposedly get a few grand if you put the same amount in yourself.

"My friend had drawn up business plans and jumped through all the other hoops they put up. Then one day, we are told it has been withdrawn, after she put all that work.

"You wouldn't get away with behaving like this in the private sector (unless you were working on government PFIs of course.”

This is beyond cynical; it is contemptible abuse of bureaucratic power against the best of the young in our community. A swollen beaurocracy grown complacent in their tax funded security and anonimity.

The writer and her friend have the makings of a successful business and yet again this is the result. Meanwhile, she comments on the “obscene salary package of £9.6 million which has been given to RBS boss Stephen Hester” .

All this does is confirm suspicions, which I mentioned yesterday, that nothing has changed. If Alistair Darling, the chancellor, chooses he can block this this grotesque tax funded deal.

Another email – this time from Newport – comments on Prince Charles’ 25% increase in cash from taxpayers and yet manages to pay less in taxes. His tax bill fell by £300,000 to £3 million. Charles travels around in luxury, accompanied on a recent jaunt by 16 tax funded servants.

He enjoyed two extravagant long haul trips to the Far East and South America last year. That little lot cost around £1 million of your money.

The explanation: he was asked to visit by the government. According to Charles' mouthpiece, Sir Michael Peat, (Charles being too grand to explain himself) “They are all requested and paid for by the government for good reasons.”

Who says? Are these reasons so good that the £1 million is better value than the thousands of lumps of cash that could appportioned to help entrepreneurs in Wales and elsewhere.

Charles, being so grand, is preceded by one of his servants to check out the locations in advance. What possible point is there in an unelected prince whom many regard as an affront to democracy, doing swanning around the globe on behalf of the UK.

Coming closer to home, rather too close as far as our Conservative MP, Stephen Crabb, is concerned, I was advised to “Read p2. of the Western Telegraph and ask yourself what is going off."

What is "going off" is, amongst other expenses, Stephen Crabb spends £795 on a kingsize bed and £632.71 on a leather armchair.

This writer says, "Why didn’t he buy his own #### furniture, the greedy #####”

The small “business transformation grant” is something I had never heard of.

Now that I have, it seems a flaccid and ineffective piece of machinery. What it achieves – apart, of course, from lots of paperwork and meetings for staff paid for by taxes, I do not know.

In passing, are all these Quango's still there? Some members picking up huge sums for a couple of days a week.

I had intended to write about another trip in my kayak while Daphne swam. However, I have been deflected by the outrage evoked from yesterday. Perhaps another time. For now, here is a photograph of calmer seas.