From King Charles downwards everyone always lines up at Christmas to praise the valiant NHS workers (greedy bastards), and other public sector workers who keep the country running at this time of year. Well up to a point.
The Shipmans and nurses will be on special rates and will get Time off in Lieu (TOIL) as they sit on the wards recording Tic Toc videos and filling in forms from a Diversity Officer on £110,000 per annum asking why they don’t feel more guilty for being white. But there is another group who nobody praises who will, like me, be working this Christmas as we work 365 days a year. If we are ill, as I have been for a month, or well and whatever day it is the accursed entrepreneurs keep going. But nobody praises them.
Some left wing know it all had a go at myself and my pal Kelvin Mackenzie arguing that we do nothing useful. Kelvin can defend himself. It may be that “comrade twitter know it all” is correct about me. Some might say that exposing financial criminals and those who part folks from their cash with lies is a good job. This year I started the ball rolling which has now seen sleazy Tory, the Earl of Shrewsbury barred from the House of Lords. There is no doubt that I hastened the downfall of Neil Woodford. The FRC and FCA have numerous times praised my work in exposing fraud. And that work has given me a platform to raise more than a quarter of million pounds for an unfashionable charity.
But I accept one might view such work as pointless. But it does not cost the taxpayer a cent. I have not asked the taxpayer for a cent. Instead, like most entrepreneurs, I risked my own capital and I now have nine folks on the payroll (plus me) who can pay for Christmas dinner thanks to their salary. They pay tax (I hope) as do I and the businesses and all that tax goes to pay the salaries of teachers, Shipman’s, nurses etc.
This Christmas I know that the business needs to keep going and so I sit here hammering out articles though I have been sick for four weeks and feel awful. Natch I cannot get an appointment with my GP. I hope my staff are enjoying a well-earned break. And that is how many entrepreneurs will be feeling this Christmas. We will be catching up on paperwork or still working through the holiday period.
Our critics seem to think we are all fat cats so need no praise. But most who start their own business are not rich, they earn a fraction of what, say, a GP or a University professor might trouser. In fact most start up businesses fail. In tough times staff must still get paid, it is the owners who take most of the pain. But it is we wicked entrepreneurs who pay for so much public sector largesse.
So, this Christmas I raise a glass to my fellow entrepreneurs. The King and others might not think you need praising but I understand your heroism and that you really are the heroes of Christmas. You pay for it after all…