Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, health 'n' safety and Plod: How regulation and high taxes are crippling small businesses/December 2nd 2011.

Richie - It's with great sadness that I report the demise of a well-known local business of these parts. Marge Butterworth set up her mobile cup-cake service back in the boom years of Gordon Brown. Much of her custom came from council departments and public sector workers who snapped up Marge's wares for meetings, birthdays and official functions. Now, though, with public sector wages and pension benefits being ground to dust poor Marge's trade has shrivelled to a halt and this week saw her pink van make its final run before the business was wound up. Needless to say, Marge is a broken woman but clear-headed enough to realise that all businesses depend on a vibrant public sector for their custom. Indeed Marge was at the forefront of the union march on Wednesday demonstrating against the loony policies of this vile unelected govt of the Tory featherweights! What a shame the private sector moaners who demonise the public sector don't realise they're biting the hand that feeds them I say!