Britain
The slump to the 2020s, from the point of view of a firm trading through it. The years the games are set in, and what each one did to a small business.
The slump to the 2020s, from the point of view of a firm trading through it. The years the games are set in, and what each one did to a small business.
- The fortnight when every price changed. Every ticket on every shelf had to be written again by hand, between customers, in a fortnight. The arithmetic was the easy part of it.
- When diesel trebled and the rates did not. A haulier agrees rates in the spring and holds them all year. In the autumn of 1973 the fuel to run them more than trebled, and the work was still there.
- Choosing which three days to bake. Bread does not keep, and from 1 January 1974 the ovens only had power three days in seven. Which three days was the whole of a baker's winter.
- The week VAT nearly doubled. The Budget of 12 June 1979 nearly doubled the standard rate of VAT with six days' notice. In a clothes shop, a tax change is a window full of wrong tickets.
- The shop that carried a village for a year. In a pit village the shop's turnover is the colliery's wage bill passing through a till. From March 1984 there was no wage bill, and everybody still had to eat.
- The morning anybody could register a route. From 26 October 1986 anybody with an operator's licence could register a bus route and charge what they liked. The fifty-six day notice period is what made it hurt.
- Seven and a half per cent, then fifteen. In January 1988 a Reading housebuilder could option a field and watch it gain value before the contract was signed. Base rate that May was seven and a half per cent.
- The year the water companies were floated. The ten water and sewerage companies in England and Wales were floated in December 1989. The customers could not leave, and the regulator had already written the prices.
- What the tunnel did to the ferries. The tunnel opened in May 1994. It had no tide, no weather and no dry dock, and the ferries answered with lower fares, larger ships and five more years of duty free.
- The first franchises, and the number that mattered. The first two rail franchises started in February 1996 on falling subsidy, leased trains and somebody else's track. One published figure decided how they were judged.
- Two halls, one tenant, March 2000. The second hall was finished in the spring of 2000: power in, cooling running, nothing in the racks. The bill for an empty hall is almost the bill for a full one.
- The autumn nobody flew. The leases on four aircraft fall due on the first of every month. In the autumn of 2001 that was the only part of a regional airline that carried on exactly as before.
- The July the regulars went outside. Half the regulars smoked and the beer garden was a yard with two barrels in it. From 1 July 2007, that was the whole business problem in one sentence.
- Six days of an empty apron. The rosters for the week of 15 April 2010 were printed before anybody had heard of the volcano. Every one of those shifts was paid, and not one aircraft came.
- Nine routes nobody will pay for. The council decides which rural routes it will pay for. The operator is the one whose name goes on the withdrawal notice in the village shelter, fifty-six days before the last bus.
- Bidding against your own numbers. The bid team's own numbers were the most credible in the room, and to win they had to bid past them. How a rail franchise competition actually worked.
- When the main contractor goes under. Two months of applications, every pound of retention on four sites, and nobody left with the authority to sign a certificate. Monday, 15 January 2018.
- Six days of snow, nineteen thousand bins. Six days of snow cost the contractor nothing in revenue and everything in the one number the contract is written on. The 2018 catch-up from the depot side.