{"id":33558,"date":"2016-05-26T11:52:26","date_gmt":"2016-05-26T10:52:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=33558"},"modified":"2016-05-26T11:52:26","modified_gmt":"2016-05-26T10:52:26","slug":"entrepreneurs-did-not-build-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2016\/05\/26\/entrepreneurs-did-not-build-britain\/","title":{"rendered":"Entrepreneurs did not build Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have been an entrepreneur. I am quite proud of the fact. I will certainly never deny it. I enjoyed the experience. I even think I was quite good at it. But I would never claim entrepreneurs built Britain.<\/p>\n<p>Liam Byrne MP does in his new book:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2016\/05\/26\/entrepreneurs-did-not-build-britain\/screen-shot-2016-05-26-at-11-36-26\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-33559\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-33559\" src=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-26-at-11.36.26-550x856.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2016-05-26 at 11.36.26\" width=\"277\" height=\"431\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-26-at-11.36.26-550x856.png 550w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-26-at-11.36.26-193x300.png 193w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-26-at-11.36.26-145x225.png 145w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-26-at-11.36.26-85x132.png 85w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/Screen-Shot-2016-05-26-at-11.36.26.png 762w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 277px) 100vw, 277px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There are three problems, at least, with this book.<\/p>\n<p>First, it makes an unjustified claim on who built Britain.<\/p>\n<p>Second, it ignores the contributions of those with at least equal if not greater claim to have done so (workers, social reformers, those who raised families against all the odds, teachers, medics and those who had the idea of delivering public sanitation and local energy and politcians, amongst so many others).<\/p>\n<p>Third, his list includes not a single women.<\/p>\n<p>One to miss. And a sad reflection on the state of his thinking, I am afraid. If one wanted evidence that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2013\/03\/06\/the-cowardly-state-is-in-disarray-we-need-the-courageous-alternative\/\" target=\"_blank\">cowardly politician<\/a> is still alive and well at Westminster this looks to be all that is required.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been an entrepreneur. I am quite proud of the fact. I will certainly never deny it. I enjoyed the experience. I even think<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2016\/05\/26\/entrepreneurs-did-not-build-britain\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[141,35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-courageous-state","category-economics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}