Tuesday 14 December 2010

Social Media - It's important to do what applies to your business

Twitter, Facebook, Youtube - what should you use for business? 

Case Study - Yeo Valley

This is great case study. Organic product (so not mainstream), yoghurt (some people like, some don't), and a family business.

Checking out their Website 

page there are clear signs to social media networks. Clicking on these networks reveals some not unsurprising results - followers on Facebook and Twitter are relatively low. Why would you follow I suppose? It is just a dairy product and in every supermarket so you don't have to work that hard at keeping up with where they are.

But as with all businesses, Yeo Valley have extreme competition from foreign imports, supermarket own brand labels etc. It's important to try and develop a brand personality that consumers will align themselves with. 10 years ago the only way of making this happen would be through an expensive TV campaign. Well, Yeo Valley have an expensive TV campaign, but importantly it's backed up by Social Media, and in the latest case an incredible viral video that Youtube has already served 1.5 million times!! If you then check the social channels it's clear to see what a 'chatter' that this escalates. Yeo's Facebook page is full of likes for the video and although people are not signing up to Twitter they are tweeting the video (40 tweets today and the video has been out a while) that all send users to the site and increase brand awareness.

The business case is that the customer is now in control. Marketing is undertaken by them and as a business you just have to learn to interact with them in any way the wish (not any way YOU would wish - note Yeo Valley responding directly on Facebook to customers). Interflora searches Twitter for people having bad days and then sends them some flowers (having tweeted them) - what a great way to communicate and everyone is a winner.

For all the doubting Thomas' out there, you can always just stay in the dark. You won't get the best deal, nor the early bird offers. You probably don't watch that much TV and certainly not the adverts, and without any social media interaction you would have missed the video below, which just makes you smile and feel a bit better for the day (and buy Yeo valley bext time rather than American brand Rachels Organic ( - as Sid says, Buy cos it's British)

Posted via email from steve rushton

Tuesday 30 November 2010

Only Google Can afford Groupon (and win)

In truth it is only Google who can afford to buy Groupon at the valuations being bandied about. It has the infrastructure, Internet clout (local advertisers) and profits (only adwords makes money for Google). Google has a history of paying lots of money for big ideas and although they can't monetize them immediately that doesn't matter as they have so much cash swilling around it's just important that Facebook don't 'buy the competition'

So - is Groupon worth $6Bn? Certainly not in the short term, maybe in the long term with the right amount of Google Support, ensuring that it becomes the 'standard'. After all, there have been discount schemes around for a long time, why does Groupon work better? The key is in the repackaging of an old idea. Voucher schemes from businesses such as vouchercodes.com have been successful but don't command such wild valuation. They aren't very 'clean' sites, the consumer has to work hard to get the info. Groupon 'googelises' this voucher industry, making it simpler for consumers to understand what's on offer. It's Genius in it's simplicity.

Could Groupon shareholders make any more profit by not selling to Google now? Almost 100% not. Google are buying at a premium and valuation you would expect when it was a lot larger, which of course is difficult to achieve without Google, but easier with.

The gain for everyone is that Groupon has introduced a different form of advertising to adwords and adsense. That's good news for retailers but it's no wonder Google are buying the third largest advertising medium after the two it already owns. Keep up with news on Groupon at http://tiny.cc/fb3en

Posted via email from steve rushton

Friday 26 November 2010

SEO - an Insider's View

Let's just take one thing for granted. Google is the most powerful company on the planet right now. ALL it's income comes from PPC Paid Advertising. There is no way at all that they will develop a system that will deplete their income potential model. Now - over to SEO:

I've recently had two meetings, one with an SEO agency and one with an SEO Expert. The interesting thing about both meetings was the fact that in order to get anywhere in SEO you need to commit serious money investing in it and won't see a return for at least the first 18 months. Perhaps for the first 3 years you will have spent more money on it than was in the budget (seems that marketing online budgets are very flexible when it comes to PPC). Google admit to changing the algorithm regularly and so this is just an ongoing battle. You can really only ever afford to do SEO if you have a fast growing business. If you have a mature family business that is not intent on large growth then outside SEO expertise will just be a drain on finances (you are better off doing it in house over time).

The Agency Pitch

We work on the basis of being able to replace PPC and so in the long run you will spend less money advertising for new business. We have many mysterious and technical ways of achieving this.

The Consultant Pitch

I'm about risk management. Bypassing years of historical trading and internet presence to fool Google into thinking that I have a much better reputation than my new site would otherwise indicate. The nub of the issue is really link building, and tons of them. The technical stuff is just a given these days' Content and link building are the only ways you can perform better in search and both costs lots of money and link building is quite dubious in some instances so my role is to manage the risk of building SEO for a new client.

Conclusion

There are no guarantees to SEO. You should of course SEO optimise and write great content and link build, but do this over the long term with an inhouse team. Write a budget for it (named investment in the future), but don't throw all your other marketing activities (online PPc and offline) out of the bath. SEO is a long term investment. We are in a recession, spend at your peril (unless you happen to be a company that is immune to the recession) and concentrate on spending money to get immediate sales.

Foot Note: The consultant commented how difficult it is to make any money out of running an agency. Too many high cost people and too high an expectation from clients. In fact, if they did their job properly for the clients then they would not make any money. So, here's news to those companies hoping to outsource the magic. You can't unless you have very deep pockets. Get learning.

Posted via email from steve rushton

Is this the start of UK Auditors getting caught?

The top bods in the top four UK Accountancy Practices appeared in front of the Lord's this week to answer questions about the role that Auditors had to play in the reporting on banks financial stability.....

Accountancy Age, November 23, 2010: Debate focused on the use of “going concern” guidance, issued by auditors if they believe a company will survive the next year. Auditors said they did not change their going concern guidance because they were told the government would bail out the banks.

“Going concern [means] that a business can pay its debts as they fall due. You meant something thing quite different, you meant that the government would dip into its pockets and give the company money and then it can pay it debts and you gave an unqualified report on that basis,” Lipsey said.

Lord Lawson said there was a “threat to solvency” for UK banks which was not reflected in the auditors’ reports.

“I find that absolutely astonishing, absolutely astonishing. It seems to me that you are saying that you noticed they were on very thin ice but you were completely relaxed about it because you knew there would be support, in other words, the taxpayer would support them,” he said.

 

I am astonished as well that they appear to be so relaxed about the whole thing. The ONLY reason that auditors exist is to ensure that the directors of a business have behaved responsibly, in line with the wishes and good will of shareholders and that the accounts reflect a true and fair result. Why Auditing firms have not gone down I have no idea. We may all want to chase the devil bankers who have been paid so many bonus' but they will argue that they earned those bonus' good and proper in accordance with the rules that the banks set. The role of the Auditors is surely to then check that this is right? 

In fact the bankers were paid massive bonus', based on short term profits from long term debt ridden liabilities that the tax payer has had to pick up. The Auditors missed this - I mean MISSED THIS. How can that be? What on earth are they auditing or is it just that they spend too long ensuring that the numbers have been transactionally added up, without standing back and wondering what the number mean.

As for 'Going Concern' - it's ludicrous. The whole financial sector, including responsibilities of audit firms needs a massive overhaul. Stop paying the big bonus' and get them all back to work properly.

 

Posted via email from steve rushton

Tuesday 23 November 2010

SEO Experts - What's the Craic?

SEO agencies and experts continue their quest for search engine domination. It continues to be a conundrum to me how and why Google would want them to succeed when their business model relies solely on PPC income.

There has also been much debate over social media and exactly how companies should or should not invest in social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkediN and Facebook. The debate rages on but one thing is for sure, it's always difficult outsmarting an organisation such as Google that employs such talented and intelligent people. 

Check out this latest screen grab. All these results fell above the 'fold' in the page (I was using an iPad) and what is interesting here is the dominance of News feeds, Twitter streams in real time and of course PPC. Where are the natural search results? All below the fold and if you look at the heat map I published on an earlier blog you will see that of course it is the top of the page that the most activity. Any comments SEO guys?

Posted via email from steve rushton

Wednesday 17 November 2010

Technology - something the non geeks should watch

At the very mention of the word 'technology' a lot of the office will just glaze over. This is especially damaging when the top management team do the same. Life has got tougher and the 'magic' or should I say 'bull****' taken out of every day decisions. Modern day 'Mad Men' are the tech guys. Business' hand over large sums of money and hope for the best and that the geeks will sort it, without input. What successful businessman have you ever encountered in the past who has taken a passive role in understanding the lifeline of his business.

Here is a great conference speech from a real grown up. The boss of CISCO (yes - a aren't they network providers?) talks some real life issues and how they can help solve them.

 

Posted via email from steve rushton

Tuesday 16 November 2010

PPC vs SEO - the debate rages (because it costs so much!!)

The heat map above shows the clicked search area of a typical google results page. What does it tell us?

The SEO Marketer

80 - 85% of all clicks on google come from natural listings. These cost nothing and your site gets 8 x the traffic than from paid search (PPC)

The PPC Marketer

The ability to carefully develop a PPC strategy that delivers profitable leads, within margin, with the ability to turn campaigns on and off due to seasonality is very strong. many business models rely entirely on PPC. Google has lots of research aimed at PPC because it is their only way of making money and projects like youtube cost about $500m per annum to run so they need the money! You can get up and running very quickly and compete with the big boys and it doesn't take all year.

The Business Marketer

The heat map above shows that in fact in line with what you expect, and from your own research (how you google!), that PPc and SEO are both important. The key element is being in position 1 - 5 either via SEO or PPC. After that you really get a small share of the traffic. The bottom place on page 1 equates to about 3% of clicks. This therefore gives you probably less volume than the first three paid search positions. However getting to page 1 at the bottom on high traffic key words could have cost you a lot of money.

The online marketing industry, in its infancy and although 'technical' in many ways, there is a lot of common sense that should be employed. Traditional businesses, such as travel businesses, who are morphing into online businesses just want there to be a magic answer. They are currently spending oodles of cash, throwing whatever it takes to the agency that can say - 'I can get you free relevant traffic!'. The point with all this is that everyone is forgetting the cost, and the make up of the marketing spend. The advice costs such enormous amounts that companies are currently signing up 1/3rd of their marketing budget to SEO agencies who have absolutely no industry knowledge, nor guarantee anything other than trying to get certain search terms onto the first page.

The Point

My point is really that the changing landscape online has just made the whole game a lot harder. Ill informed bosses are throwing money at agencies hoping they will deliver without understanding the sales funnel, their product, their budget or their alternatives. SEO is an important and vital part of the strategy and long term will yield great results.

However - let's not forget that:

1. Consumers tend to research using natural listings and buy using all the listings. Let's face it, if you want something and it stares you in the face at the top of the search results why click anywhere else?

2. Google continually make organic listings difficult by changing their algorythm. This is perportedly to make listings more relevant. However, it would just be strange if they hadn't worked in the - ' if everyone succeeds at natural search we don't have a business as our income drops off paid search'

3. The SEO guys would have it that paid search is'evil' - 'I never click on paid adverts' they will say and that's what customers think. Since when did we see adverts in magazines as evil? This just doesn't stack and the PPC guys will argue that 1. some customers don't know it is a paid advert and 2. paid adverts usually indicate a professional well managed business that can afford a campaign.

4. The only way to really tell is to measure results for SEO vs PPC and conversions on these. My guess is that the data is complicated to distinguish (and most companies just rely on their agencies to tell them the truth!! ha ha). If SEO was always the winner why else would brands appear at the top of SEO and paid search for a product - if it wasn't for the fact that both work, both cost money and no one really knows what the answer is! Look at the image here for DVD results and spot the double appearance in PPC and SEO

 

Posted via email from steve rushton

Friday 29 October 2010

and people still don't get online marketing

Avinash Kaushik just talked about what strategies education establishments use to market online. From my experience lots of commerce companies are struggling with this approach. Extracted from his post....

Thousands of websites engage in this type of online marketing:

1. Shout Marketing. “We don’t care what you want or consider any signals of relevance you might provide, we’ll just shout at you about what we want to “pimp”.

2. Offline Marketing. “We know how to print glossy brochures, and look how cool it is that now we can put all that online exactly as we did in the offline world.”

3. Unimaginative Marketing. “Our site was created in 1990 as soon as the web got cool. We are really working hard to figure out what has changed since then. Meanwhile here’s our 1990 site with the addition of Follow On Twitter & Facebook buttons.”

Posted via email from steve rushton

Monday 27 September 2010

Gareth Malone's Extraordinary School for Boys

BBC's excellent experiment taking the choirmaster to a school where the boys were way behind girls in literacy.

Results were amazing. Partly because Gareth taught the boys in their way and also because he concentrated on literacy for 8 weeks with them. The reaction by my 6 year old son's teacher was that :

1. she did not believe boys needed teaching differently to girls (wrong - and there are neuroscience tests that prove that now!)

2. She wished she had more time to teach literacy (so leaves it to us!). Scrap French for 5 year olds if there isn't enough time for English I say and all the extra curricula stuff and general messing around. Get teaching.....

The highway to hell: Dire predictions for the future of marketing - iMediaConnection.com

"Interesting stats from the head of Ogilvy. Consumers now twice as internet enables as marketeers. IN a nutshell, consumers are using the internet at a greater rate than marketeers are devoting time to it....."
Digital marketing is at a dangerous crossroads. At the iMedia Brand Summit, Brian Fetherstonhaugh explained how a perception revolution is the only thing that can save the industry from itself.

Tuesday 21 September 2010

Globalisation and the political nonsense of border controls

This is another article on 'non joined up writing'.

Simon Fairlie wrote in the Sunday Times (19th September 2010) that the government had solved the dangers posed by the 9000 year old practise of feeding swill to pigs ( a great recycling system) after a farmer failed to cook the swill and caused a disease outbreak. Instead of making sure that controls were in place and education to ensure that swill had been cooked prior to feed (and after all we had survived 9000 years with the same practise) our esteemed politicians decided to ban the practice (not nice for pigs when they are designed for a meat and veg diet and rubbish for carbon emissions). Instead we now grow GM soya by cutting down South American Rain Forest and contributing to global warming. Clearly better to kill off the whole human population via global warming disasters than risk the non cooking of pig swill.

This morning papers run articles that the latest ban on Tier 2 workers is going to have an impact on our ability to climb out of recession.  Another great politician blunder by failing to sort the problem. All industry is now dependent on global workforces. Some of the best performing internet businesses rely on global programmers. Closer to home the last government raised the standard of living so that it is now not possible for employers to be able to get white English people of their unemployed backsides because benefits far outweight what they are worth paying in the workforce (and what the wider population will pay for goods). What is this governements plan to tackle that? Border control, stop the workers coming in. Wouldn't a better answer be to just reform benefits? Make people want to work?

The crutial issue is though the damage that will be done now when industries as diverse as ship building and catering cannot employ workers because no one at home is qualified or motivated enough to do the job anf foreign workers cannot come here. Why this 'visible' labour, that adds into our wider economy through spending in shops etc. is not acceptable when the government bangs about Globalisation being good and then lauds the industries using labour around the world to manufacture/programme/process and hence build the economies in those countries is beyond me.

Thursday 3 June 2010

Fontana House - Why it works so well....

We've just uploaded new photographs of Fontana House in Paxos onto our site at www.simpsontravel.com. We have a stunning portfolio of properties in Paxos and sales staff have come back from an educational visit and were blown away by the properties which really are now some of the best we have.

I travel each year and this year again we are staying in Fontana House in Paxos. The guys in the office wanted to know why this worked so well for me and so I thought a personal view would help.

Fontana House is set on its own in an olive grove just a short 5 minute walk from the centre of Fontana. Fontana village is very small and only has two amenities - a taverna and small shop selling bread and a few provisions. For us the fact that the taverna is considered to be one of the best on the island just completes what is otherwise an idyllic villa and location. In the main we cook ourselves being very fussy about food and so the well equipped kitchen and outside barbecue work really well for meal times, but a treat at the taverna or indeed buying a take out of sizzling lamb from the spit to go with a home made greek salad is difficult to beat. 

The villa has a feeling of space and openness and that together with the stonewalled garden means that you have privacy as well as a great space to just be in. That is why out of the main season it sells so well to couples travelling together. As a family of five (we squash Tom on a camp bed which isn't ideal but the kids insist it's fine) it's important for us that Tom (aged 5) can kick a football around and hunt for lizards in a safe garden and that the older two can swim in the pool while Sarah and I sip a cold drink on the balcony off the living area that overlooks the pool (keeping out of splashes!). Last year we packed a few drinks and walked to Erimitis bay from the house, probably best attempted after the main heat of the day but you get to see and smell the real greek outdoors. We can spend days hidden away here and I'm looking forward to turning off my phone and being invisible for a while this year.

Paxos is not a large island so you are never far from anywhere. Not creatures of habit we are slightly surprised that we keep on returning but then having only just made it across to AntiPaxos last year and being blown away by its beauty (and sandy beach and another great taverna) we just feel drawn back. I first travelled to Greece in 1990 staying Skopelos in a small cottage with an outside kitchenette and travelling everywhere on a moped. Twenty years on life does not seem to have moved that fast and Greece's charm as a getaway from all that normal life has to throw at you will surely be the reason why we will keep returning year after year. Having lived in the Far East and lived and worked in Africa I've been lucky to see some amazing places. For us, Greece has everything that other destinations have ... and more. Six weeks and counting till we go!

Posted via email from steve rushton

Fontana House - Why it works so well....

We've just uploaded new photographs of Fontana House in Paxos onto our site at www.simpsontravel.com. We have a stunning portfolio of properties in Paxos and sales staff have come back from an educational visit and were blown away by the properties which really are now some of the best we have.

I travel each year and this year again we are staying in Fontana House in Paxos. The guys in the office wanted to know why this worked so well for me and so I thought a personal view would help.

Fontana House is set on its own in an olive grove just a short 5 minute walk from the centre of Fontana. Fontana village is very small and only has two amenities - a taverna and small shop selling bread and a few provisions. For us the fact that the taverna is considered to be one of the best on the island just completes what is otherwise an idyllic villa and location. In the main we cook ourselves being very fussy about food and so the well equipped kitchen and outside barbecue work really well for meal times, but a treat at the taverna or indeed buying a take out of sizzling lamb from the spit to go with a home made greek salad is difficult to beat. 

The villa has a feeling of space and openness and that together with the stonewalled garden means that you have privacy as well as a great space to just be in. That is why out of the main season it sells so well to couples travelling together. As a family of five (we squash Tom on a camp bed which isn't ideal but the kids insist it's fine) it's important for us that Tom (aged 5) can kick a football around and hunt for lizards in a safe garden and that the older two can swim in the pool while Sarah and I sip a cold drink on the balcony off the living area that overlooks the pool (keeping out of splashes!). Last year we packed a few drinks and walked to Erimitis bay from the house, probably best attempted after the main heat of the day but you get to see and smell the real greek outdoors. We can spend days hidden away here and I'm looking forward to turning off my phone and being invisible for a while this year.

Paxos is not a large island so you are never far from anywhere. Not creatures of habit we are slightly surprised that we keep on returning but then having only just made it across to AntiPaxos last year and being blown away by its beauty (and sandy beach and another great taverna) we just feel drawn back. I first travelled to Greece in 1990 staying Skopelos in a small cottage with an outside kitchenette and travelling everywhere on a moped. Twenty years on life does not seem to have moved that fast and Greece's charm as a getaway from all that normal life has to throw at you will surely be the reason why we will keep returning year after year. Having lived in the Far East and lived and worked in Africa I've been lucky to see some amazing places. For us, Greece has everything that other destinations have ... and more. Six weeks and counting till we go!

Posted via email from Steve's Travel Blog

Friday 21 May 2010

Why you can't trust Supermarkets.....

Last week Pedigree Chum won a ruling that Supermarkets could only redeem their money off vouchers on tins of pet food against the actual product. It seems that up until last October Tesco had been allowing the redemption of money off coupons against any product, regardless of whether the voucher matched the product being bought. This was brought to light when Pedigree Chum found Tesco's redeeming their vouchers against alcohol purchases and then charging Pedigree Chum for them. They have now said that they will endeavour to ensure this does not happen and have changed company rules re this (thieving!) practise. Seems now the fight is over whether Tesco's can implement a policy of not saving the coupons to send back to the manufacturer as they want to be able to just send a statement of redemption. What nonsense!

Tesco's is always being held up as a success story. Making billions of pounds profit in fact all they may have done is deny the high street the presence of smaller shops that contribute both locally in employment and social cohesion and trade with a passion for their product. With the advent of online ordering and delivery let's hope that rather than having to support such large, ruthless and dishonest (see above) business' we see more choice from smaller, honest and passionate retailers. We have managed to change our shopping habits so that we only get a delivery from online Ocado about once a month with 'staples' (washing up liquid etc.) and buy the rest form small shops on the high street and farmers markets. The net result: our shopping bill has been reduced as we don't waste any over bought food - a practise that supermarket shopping is classic for ensuring, and small shops that care supported.

Posted via web from steve rushton

Wednesday 5 May 2010

Future of Food

Last night's episode http://tinyurl.com/mvkgm4m was even more shocking in many ways than the first episode.

The presentation is remarkably calm, and perhaps too calm? Over the course of the hour if you really listened carefully the very scary message that within our lifetime we would run out of major meat and fish is pretty disturbing. Incidentally, grass fed cattle, which we have been eating and promoting is by far the most sustainable. The UK are pretty far ahead with this, but in the US and Argentina, the vast majority are grain fed. 15kg's of grain to make 1kg of beef. Not only does this sound wasteful, but it is now proven that this is an unsustainable model.

Not sure governments will do anything. My guess is that simple economics will sort it out when the price of fish and beef goes sky high. But then the environmental consequences of this are huge.

I recommend you take some time out and watch this.

Posted via web from Artisan Production Kitchen

Friday 30 April 2010

Why aren't people scared of not voting?

After last night's debate and the aftermath it looks like we are all starting to get our heads around the task in hand. 

Cleggster seems to have lost his way and so Cameron who does carry the weight of the world on his shoulders came out on top.

The reality according to Mervyn King is that the swingeing cuts needed to get the economy back on course will mean that whoever gets in next will not be voted in again for a lifetime. We just don't seem to be able to get our heads around this. Perhaps it is because the numbers are too great and that when you quote in the trillions for debt we lesser mortals just cannot get our heads around what that means.The Institute for Fiscal Studies warned on Tuesday that all three parties had been hiding from voters the full details of their plans to cut the deficit. It said that the scale of cuts following the election could be the deepest since comparable records began just after World War Two.

What does that mean for us? 

The economics that we just can't get our heads around is the housing one. For some reason the rise in price of houses is not a factor that is reported as part of inflation figures. So, for the past few years we have been 'told' that we have low inflation, low in comparative interest rates, high growth and as Brown put it " No return to Boom and Bust" because he had the model right. WRONG: we have had the biggest boom and bust for a century. Anyone that votes for Brown and insists that Tories would have run the country into the ground as labour has is misinformed and midguided on tory policies. The general view is that it is still 'cool' to vote labour and that to vote tory is somehow siding with the rich people. Of course they all get things wrong, of course most people don't sign up to all the policies but as a reasoned human being (and plenty of what Clegg and Brown say they stand for absolutely tick my box) but the grave reality now is this. Lib Dems can't get in so do you vote for more of teh same (Labour has been having a go for 13 years and not got it right) or give the other side a go. It is really as simple as that. What I have found interesting in letting my feelings and opinions about politics out is that far from Tories being the bigotted ones it is in fact labour supporters who refuse to discuss, when challenged cannot back up their arguments and then retreat with a 'well they are all as bad as each other so I don't care'. It's amazing. This is probably the biggest election of our lifetime and still people aren't turned on to it.

Back to housing. The BBC this morning showed pictures of vast numbers of empty houses in Ireland built in the boom years and never occupied. We now pay for the cost of these as they no doubt have bankrupt owners. The housing bubble seems to have recovered and we are only 10% down on the peak 2007 levels. People say this is OK and people are buying again. What do I think? Wrong! Back in 2007 the country did not mention the high risks we were taking. Even when Lehman's collapsed no-one wanted to talk about disaster because it would then become self fulfilling. The same is now true of the housing market.Let's not talk about it. Let's hope the intelligent estate agents are right.Well I think we should get real.It's all a bubble and apart from a few people who bought at the wrong time with too little cash then prices are held up by false paper money that just needs wiping out.

Long term trends are now easy to find so you can work this out from raw data held on government websites. The trends show that house prices are still overvalued by 20% to their long term average. This is an average and in fact there is a case that perhaps they have to double dip another 30% before they recover to 20% below where they are now. Yes a lot of people will feel some pain. But what pain is that? Is that the pain of a nation in debt to the tune of having to make a plan to save £34,000,000,000 (£34 thousand million) a year just to halve the deficit we have. Of course it is so just get ready for the ride. Alternatively put that off so that when it comes it is even more painful. Gordon wants to carry on spending and so we will feel the pain later, and of course, much like going to the doctor, the longer you leave it the worse it gets. Gordon borrows £1 in every £4 he spends right now. That will stop either with a  different government or when our creditors (or in the case of Greece the IMF) refuse to give us any more money. Black outs, food riots, civil unrest, no thanks.

Posted via email from steve & sarah rushton