Quizzes & Puzzles8 mins ago
Rachel Reeves Closing Down Sale........
27 Answers
Yesterday I visited the Dolphin centre in Poole. I didn't realise this until I saw this poster in their window:
But 140 year old dept store Beales is closing down, another victim of Reeves job and business destruction scheme:
https:/
Has there ever been a Chancellor so clueless?
Answers
I haven't been to the Dolphin Centre for a few years when I used to go there all the time (when it was the Arnedale Centre) becasue nearly all the decent shops have closed. As someone who grew up with not only Beales in Poole but also Beales and Bealsons in Bournemouth as department stores you went to when you wanted to buy something of quality I can say a lot of locals...
20:44 Wed 14th May 2025
I don't know if you went down to the Quay, Tora, but the Wetherspoons (called "The Quay") on the front closed a couple of months ago. I believe Hall & Woodhouse have taken it over.
There is still another Wethers - The "Lord Wimbourne" in Lagland Street, just over the level crossing which I always thought the better of the two.
Yes the chickens from last October's budget are now well and truly coming home to roost. Firms are cutting back on hiring and unemployment is at its highest level since Covid (but still were old we need to import foreign labour).
"Beales chief executive, Tony Brown, said the minimum wage increase, together with a rise in employers' National Insurance Contributions (NICs) had added "exponential cost" to the business."
He's not wrong. I don't know if Rachael has done any sums. I doubt it so I'll do one for her:
Employing an adult on minimum wage for a 35 hour week now costs an employer £2,367pa (10.55%) more than it did last year. This is made up of £1,401 (6.7%) in pay and a magnificent £966 (59.7%) in employers' NI.
Employers simply cannot cope with increases of this magnitude and Mr Brown is absoluely right. And to think one of our correspondents believed that people were making "too much of a fuss" over the NI increases.
Beales has been struggling for years. So much so, in fact, that the company went into administration five years ago.
https:/
Nearly all of their stores were closed shortly after that, with just a handful attempting to carry on. All of their stores were totally out of date though and they won't be missed from the High Street.
"And to think one of our correspondents believed that people were making "too much of a fuss" over the NI increases."
And not once has he either defended his position or had a mea culpa moment and admitted it was breathtakingly naive of him. Believe me, I've asked him on more than one occasion to comment (given his silence I have taken that to mean he knows it was a stupid thing to say, but is too proud/arrogant to admit it).
Just yesterday I was talking to a mate who works for a company that provides services to the hospitality industry. That industry has been particularly hit so they are cutting back on the services provided to try to weather the storm of the tax rape, the net result being his firm are having to make 200 redundancies. That's 200 hundred people who could add to the benefits bill, may not be paying income tax or NI.
I posted a couple of weeks ago about a colleague who acts as a consultant for an hotel group who had ringfenced £2.5m to refurbish one of their hotels. Their increase ENI costs are also £2.5m, so instead they're mothballing the hotel and not employing people to run it.
Anybody with even half a brain could have foreseen adverse consequences from Reeves' terrible tax increase, but given she was an "Economist at the Bank of England" (copyright her CV) she should have been better placed than most. Far from these enormous tax increases being a "fuss", the truth is they are causing enormous problems.
And then just a couple of days ago, idiot-in-chief Starmer said he's got the backs of workers. He's gaslighting the electorate.
Still, if we use Hymie (il)logic, perhaps a policy could be brought in where increased ENI only applies for employees who voted Labour. This would reduce an employers ENI costs!
I haven't been to the Dolphin Centre for a few years when I used to go there all the time (when it was the Arnedale Centre) becasue nearly all the decent shops have closed. As someone who grew up with not only Beales in Poole but also Beales and Bealsons in Bournemouth as department stores you went to when you wanted to buy something of quality I can say a lot of locals will/do miss them. Only those who either don't live in the area or shop in places like Primark can dismiss them becasue they don't know them.
you know as well as I do that the big change is online shopping. Amazon's share of UK retail chain sales is predicted to be about a third in a year or two, ahead of Tesco's.
I well remember David Cameron wailing about how unfair it was that Amazon didn't pay taxes, without once consdering that the UK prime minister - who at the time was David Cameron - might be in a position to do something about it.
Perhaps the people of Poole just prefer to buy stuff on Amazon? Perhaps you do?
TTT seems to fail to understand that a thriving High Street is NOT one where the same retailers are there year after year. A thriving High Street is one where roughly 10% of the businesses go bust every year, thus leaving room for new businesses to move in.
Beale's was totally behind the times with their business model and therefore their disappearance from the High Street is clearly to be WELCOMED.
GOOD RIDDANCE!
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