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Mr Balls said: 'The right thing to do if you are having somebody cut your hedge for a tenner is to make sure they give you their name and address and a receipt and a record for the fact that you have paid them.'
The worry here is not that traders are not giving a receipt but that people like ed Balls thinks that anyone can get their hedge cut for a tenner.
Why do Labour let Ed Balls speak. He doesn't seem to be able to say anything sensible. Like his recent 'bill sombody' when asked which business leaders support Labours economic plan.
and seriously, WHAT is the average customer going to do with that receipt? mr balls will want it so he can claim everything for his expenses
There is a world of difference between Ed Balls stating his own opinion and there being even a spark of possibility it will become labour party policy, whatever the tories or their acolytes may say. The same thing happens when a tory minister opens his mouth for any reason, labour acolytes and party activists try to make something out of it. A waste of pixels and printers' ink in either case.
I was listening to this on 5 live at the time. The first thing that annoyed me was the BBC interviewer (John Pienaar) asking Ed Balls if he had ever paid tradesmen in cash, insinuating that if he had then he was effectively complicit in tax dodging. Inferring that paying tradesmen in cash meant that they would not declare it and therefore not pay tax. Which is plainly wrong and shows a lack of understanding about how small businesses operate.
The second thing, which related more to the landscaping trade, was the derisory tone in which Mr Balls and Mr Pienaar talked about 'paying someone a tenner to cut a hedge' as if it was the lowest of the low and the easiest job in the world which could be paid for with the odd crumpled tenner here and there. I've come to expect that out of touch and sneering attitude from the BBC, but from a Labour MP I think it shows a lack of empathy with the 'ordinary' working people who are Labour's key demographic.
But in all of this the Daily Mail are clearly taking any attempt to bash Labour and draw attention away from the main issue which is the large-scale tax evasion of the very wealthy.
I think you will find that 'The Daily Mail' have devoted many, many pages to large scale tax evasion by the wealthy and surely Mr. Ed Balls needs no help diverting attention to himself.
Colin, the Westminster Village, aka the labour and tory parties mostly, and the UK press, are renowned, infamous even, for picking up the most petty, trivial remarks from the other side and attempting to make political capital out of it.
So when Balls makes a balls of the insignificant, as he often does, the tories and the tory press, of which the Mail must be the most shrill, the most idiotic of all of the populist mouthpieces with a wide audience, rub their hands and crow with glee. When Osborne, very susceptible to upper class mutterings which obviously disdain the lower orders, Labour and its admittedly smaller echelon of press behave similarly. The two parties and their own followers, and absolutely nobody else, appear to love this obnoxious game.
It convinces nobody to vote for, much less to join, either party, nor to swap their allegiances between the two. I would never ever vote tory and have not voted labour for some considerable time, since long before the current rash of xenophoebia swept the country. Although I always do and always shall vote.
The point is, the antics are intended to sway voters. They sway us indeed, but away from the perpetrators' objectives. They show me clearly what a shower of psychophantic fools the Westminster Village and its massed ranks of press rabble really are. I'm sure that goes for millions of others.
I have no need at all, much less a wish, to see the antics repeated in a forum where it has no place. Such as one purporting to be about landscaping, its practice and discussion. Much more of it will send me, for one, off in the same direction as the voters from two parties which used to have millions of members between them.
I take it you are not totally in love with our current political set up Mike!
I do find it amusing how people jump on the 'let's knock the Mail' bandwaggon. I have taken the Mail now for 20 years - I also take the Daily Mirror a couple of times a week to get a bit of balance and make my own mind up. I'm very protective of my regular newspaper! :-)
"I have no need at all, much less a wish, to see the antics repeated in a forum where it has no place. Such as one purporting to be about landscaping, its practice and discussion."
You may have misread the label Mike:)
LJN tries to deal with all topics that affect the lives of those who work in and around landscaping.
Mr Balls may have been misquoted, I don't know as I have not watched or listened to the interview, nor have I seen the transcript.
What I do know is that it is being reported that Mr Balls clearly thinks he can have his hedge cut for a tenner. Whether the trader declares that tenner is, quite honestly, the sub-story in all of this.
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