The Northern Way

Rt Hon John Redwood MP & Sir Michael Spicer MP attend an FSB, Darlington branch meeting promoting FSB policy to 'Save the Pound and not adopt the euro', the meeting was attended by over 250 members and guests in June 2000.

Once upon a time Peter Troy was very active in the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB)

In the North East of England, as this blog has mentioned in the past, the FSB has recently become, in effect, a Labour Party appreciation society. This hardly addresses the serious issues that impact on small businesses. The absence of local lobbying detail on the FSB's North East web site (www.fsb.org.uk/030 ) and the recent regional magazine is testament to their irrelevance to pertinent issues.

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The response by the Northern FSB activists to the Government's Northern Way Strategy is going to have to be hard hitting if the Northern Regions of the FSB are to prove that they have any meaningful lobbying purpose.

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Perhaps there will be a happy ending, though a touch of relevant effort will be needed if the Federation's Northern Way pamphlet is not to be a 'walk over'.

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In the meantime the newly appointed North East Regional Organiser of the FSB deserves the sympathy of the members, since the post to which he has recently been appointed has a nasty history. His predecessor was subjected to unreasonable treatment by the regional committee to the extent that she was paid off (over £10,000) prior to what would have been a very unpleasant Industrial Tribunal hearing in May. At least the FSB regional office staff can not now complain since in the interests of 'improved member service' the Newcastle Office was closed down last December in a botched redundancy decision by the Regional Officers. Following more falling out within senior ranks of the Federation a separate hushed up pay off was negotiated to avoid further embarrassment if exposed in the local press.

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No doubt at the next North Eastern regional committee meeting of the FSB on 20th September, the ruling cabal will lead the singing in unison of "things can only get better".

Peter Troy (Darlington FSB Branch Chairman 1998-2005) proposing from the platform of the FSB's national confrence at Plymouth in March 2001 that the Federation demands the withdrawal of the UK from the EU. The motion was adopted by branch delegates in a vote with majority of 68%.