Transcription
To hear from you yesterday. I just said to uh to Christian, my producer, I said we should really try and get Kevin on. So, so we reached out to you and here you are.
Um, it's a shocking situation that that people like yourself feel the way you do. I, I absolutely agree, Mike. And in preparation to this, I actually thought of a parable which would really illustrate how people like me are feeling. And if you don't mind, it only take 30 seconds.
Yeah. Um, there's a club. It's a social club. It's a great club. And everyone's welcome in this club. Uh, but there's a subscription fee. There's it's £100 a year and uh, some can easily afford that. Some are on hard times. Some, some don't work because of injury. But that's fine. We're happy for all those types of situations. But there's a small group in that club, about 10% of them, that really make a huge difference to that club. They work on it constantly. Um, they, they bring great ideas to it, Mike. And uh, they, they bring wealth to it. They bring new members to it. They bring prosperity to that group. And then what do the owners of the groups of the club say? They go, "Well, look, you 10%, you guys, we think we should double your subscription. In fact, we think we should triple it. In fact, we think even when you die, we want to take 40% of of all your money. In fact, we want whilst you're alive, we want you to contribute 60% of all all all all the money that's needed to run this club." So, what are those club members in that particular uh category going to do? They're going to think, "Hold on, I'm being taken advantage of here. I'm not being appreciated and and I'll consider going." And that's exactly how I feel right now because you haven't done what you've done by building up a company and uh, and making it work and calling it a national brand then selling it. Um, and I don't know whether you're thinking about doing something similar or whether you you've just thought of maybe I'll just go and, you know, spend the rest of my life taking it easy, which you've perfectly well earned to do. But you know, um, when you do that, people mistakenly think that you know, you're just doing that for your own benefit. You're creating jobs. You're creating money, you're creating growth in the economy, you're creating, you know, an awful lot of goodwill. Um, you're employing a lot of people, and I don't think this government understands any of that. I certainly don't think they they do. Um, this government, and I haven't looked into it, but I've heard many times they haven't got a single person on the front bench that's run a company or built a company from scratch. No. Uh, and that really, really does show, you know, we've we've we this Britain has got a 2.6 trillion debt and it's like a charging hippo heading straight for us and the government are standing in front of this hippo and they're waving a toothpick, Mike. And they're saying, "Stop. You've got some plaque on your teeth." Yeah. And that's it's it's just ridiculous. They like like like like for example all this all all this hoo-ha about um taking away uh the the pension is heating. Yeah. I, I reckon that is probably such a tiny, tiny, tiny slither of what the national debt is and and what the GDP of the UK is. It's probably a fraction of 1%. Yeah. Easy. Uh, you know, when I when I built checker trade, I always had a principle that if something had less than a 5% impact on the business, give it that much time. I would really look at the big issues and tackle those big issues and I'm I'm not a politician so I don't really know what I'm talking about to a degree, but I just don't see the huge issues being addressed by this government or previous governments. No, not at all. Well, many of them caused by previous governments and you know, I don't let the Tories off the hook on this one because a lot of the problems that we've got were caused by them, but they seem to have just sort of telescopically got worse in the last 12 months. Absolutely, Mike. I, I, I fully agree with that. Um, but coming back to your original question, I, you know, for for me, I believe there in my category and we all see things through our own tinted lenses, don't we? Yeah. But I've been in a position where before I started checker trade, I was a carpet cleaner and I and I had uh nothing in my pocket. So I can see it perspectively from both angles. But for me, these are the two big issues. It's the culture. The culture is changing fast and I believe unless something happens within the next 5 years, it will be irreversible. Um, and I'm really frightened about that. Not for me, but for what this country is going to look like for my children or my grandchildren. Yeah. And that that's a big concern to me, the culture changing. Yeah. And then for me, and this is purely uh for someone that is is within my bracket, I feel probably more than others. I, I, I believe that if there was a reasonable tax level with well-maintained public services and we believed that we were putting into something that genuinely worked. Uh, and I'm putting in, I mean, I'll tell you since I sold my company, I've paid 11 million in tax. So when people say the rich don't pay their fair share, it's absolutely ridiculous. I don't know where people get that from because we do. Every every wealthy person that I know who does what you do, runs a company, I mean, the numbers, the numbers they tell me about the amount of tax they pay is absolutely prodigious. Incredible. It is ridiculous. And then what they want to do and and this won't affect most people because inheritance tax for me is a big issue. I'm 61 and I'm thinking how do I preserve the wealth of my family? How do I I didn't work hard for 30 years to to give the government 40% of what I've achieved. I don't mind paying my fair share of tax. But when but when No, but most people, they're not in a position where they're having to pay a lot of inheritance tax. But when you have done well in life and you're now thinking millions of pounds are going to go to the government who really have not got a clue what they're doing with this money, it just really, you know, it it really gets my back up. Well, when they start telling people they're going to give you give my money and your money away to people so they can get a break on an electric car or they're going to give another 25 million to some council so they can put some gullies in the in the street so you can put an electric car in there. You know, they're taking literally the money that you've made and that I've made and giving it to people in some cases who don't even need it. We've got a nanny state, haven't we, Mike? We're being told everything that we should do in life and these are the reasons why we should be doing it and they are just rammed down our throat. If only we could turn the clock back 30 years where we could make our own decisions and what we did in life and where the business sector would would shape and form to the to the needs of the people. Yeah. And that's how life used to be. But today it's not like that, is it? It's really not. I mean, people say we're just having things shoved down our throats that we want. Yeah. It's a bit like the 70s economically speaking, but culturally actually it's not because in the 70s when there wasn't much money and there were three-day weeks and power cuts and, you know, strikes and all of that. We got through all that because there was a sort of a a stiff upper lip. There was a sort of a British spirit going going on. Whereas now it's a very different thing. And people say even with Oasis reforming, you know, people are going to see Oasis, they're not just enjoying it because of the music because they're thinking back to what it was like in the '90s, which was it seems like a million years ago when actually life was a lot better in this country, you know. Yeah. The good old days. Yeah.
But let let me give you a scenario of what I feel is happening today within within the government. It's and if I if I can equate this to business and I know uh for the politicians out there on the left, this will go straight over their heads. But imagine you're a CEO of a business and it's hemorrhaging billions of pounds. You're losing you're losing your customers left, right, and and and left, right, and center. Uh, things are just falling things are just falling apart. So, as the CEO, I run into the staff room, Mike, and I shout, right, I've got an answer. The answer is we're going to cut the heating in the staff room. That's going to save us £4,000 a year. Um, it is absolutely ridiculous. It's it's it's at the moment with this debt that we've got and and you know, they talk the left talk about this 20 billion pound black hole. There isn't a 20 billion pound black hole. There is a 2.6 trillion debt. Why can't they get that into their heads? It's a 2.6 trillion debt and it's like a charging rhino heading straight for us. And 2.6 trillion debt. He's got a toothpick in his hand. But I mean, you're saying 2.6 trillion debt. I mean, that's nothing. 2.6 trillion. What is that a day? I mean, we're talking trillions of trillions of debt, aren't we? Trillion. Sorry. Sorry. Trillion. I got it wrong. Yeah, I was going to say trillions. I mean, we're talking, you know, 2.6 trillion. They're going to try and get that back off the off the benefits bill if they can, but they probably won't. But let let me let me let me ask you this, Kevin. Are you going to leave the country? Do you think it really, really does depend on what happens over the next four to five years with the Reform Party? Um, when I listen to to Nigel and I have met him and I, I've spoke to him um, and he's, you know, the time I spent with him, he's a great guy, very honest, very sincere, very focused on wanting to make a difference in the UK. And I'm just hoping and believing that, uh, the company, the country will start to believe in him even more than what they are doing now because there is no hope with this government. There is no hope with conservatives. We need reform without a doubt. Um, it it it doesn't it doesn't need that toothpick trying to defend yourself against this charging rhino. Um, we need some radical changes. You know, you know, most most of the time we're quite negative about things. But I really do believe, Mike, that there is a way of turning this country around. We can we can do it. Oh, no question. Um, and I, I ponder upon this greatly as a businessman. Yeah. Well, listen, Kevin, it's been a pleasure to talk to you and hopefully we'll talk again because I think you've got plenty to offer uh in the in the realm of common sense.