Laura

Mum of 3 boys, wife, dog mum, pub owner, MCFC 💙

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

It’s never just……

[Dr Teck Khong @DrTeckKhong]

It’s just … about to backfire !

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

[Rupert Lowe MP @RupertLowe10]

I sit in Parliament listening to these ministers, and it’s all just so depressing - the vast majority of them have never run a business, and it SHOWS. You would not believe how bad it is.

They think ‘work’ means turning up to an office between 9 and 5, answering a few emails, and going home at the end of the day. Nice lunch break, few coffees away from the desk, probably a smoking break or several. It doesn’t - not for the millions of men and women who actually create the wealth that funds the state.

Running a small business isn’t a job. It’s a way of life. It is life. It’s 24/7/365. It’s relentless. You are the accountant, HR department, compliance officer, cleaner, marketer, and customer service team - all in one. There’s no sick pay, no safety net, and no taxpayer-funded pension waiting for you.

Holiday? Good luck. If you do manage to get away, it’s checking the phone all day, every day. Wife/husband obviously getting pissed off. We’ve all been there...

It’s all on you. Every invoice chased, every tax deadline met, every bit of red tape navigated is on you. And if you make one mistake, one error, one small slip-up, the state comes after you - in a relentlessly efficient manner that is never afforded to us when we ask questions of it.

Most MPs have no idea what that feels like. They just don’t. We’re going to see more of this in the budget I’m sure. More hurt. More pain. More tax. They don’t get it.

They don’t understand that when a small business owner gets hit with another tax, it’s not absorbed by a ‘budget’ - it’s taken straight out of their family’s pocket.

There is no ‘deficit’ in the business world - that’s called going bust.

And they certainly don’t understand what real risk looks like. Politicians can vote through a policy on Monday and forget it by Tuesday - a small business owner lives with the consequences of that policy for years, decades. The MP monthly salary is safe. It always has been. In the public sector before, and in the public sector after - if not that, some charity/NGO funded entirely by the public sector.

GET A REAL JOB.

If MPs actually spent a week running a small firm - paying suppliers, tackling VAT, navigating health and safety law, sorting out HR issues, chasing clients for payment, trying to expand while staying compliant with everything from GDPR to local planning regulations - they’d legislate very differently. I can promise you that.

They’d realise that most of Britain’s problems could be solved by the state doing less, not more.

Cutting tax. Simplifying regulation. Slashing back the HRification of the country. Trusting people who actually produce things to get on with it.

Instead, we have a political class that talks endlessly about ‘growth’ while brutally punishing the only people capable of delivering it - especially going after the family businesses/farms, which is a particularly spiteful policy decision.

Small business owners are people who work harder than almost anyone in Parliament could imagine - and who are treated worse for it.

Britain’s small businesses don’t succeed because of politicians, they survive in spite of them.

[Sacha Lord @Sacha_Lord]

A pub isn't just about having a pint.

In the UK 3.6 million people suffer from chronic loneliness.

Pubs are at the heart of our communities.
A place for friends and family to come together.

Strangers to become friends.

We must do all we can to protect them.

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@laura_woodsy Allen’s just been robbed

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

#allenfisher Dave Allen has just been absolutely robbed blind #Usyk2Fury

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@LeilaniDowding This is literally 10 minutes down the road from me, it’s an absolute disgrace.

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@yeovalley You’ve not actually answered the question, such a shame as we used your products on a regular basis, I won’t be using you again until you give a straight answer.

[No Farmers, No Food @NoFarmsNoFoods]

What a glorious turnout in London today for the farmers’ rally. 🚜
#FarmersProtest

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@MatthewStadlen @ArtsTrapper My mother and her sister have a brother, he farms the family farm like his Father before him, his grandfather etc. My mother and sister declined my grandfathers offer of splitting the estate 3 ways on his death as this would have meant selling the farm leaving him with nothing.

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@Artemisfornow Makes our £25,000 for a bat 🦇 house look like a drop in the ocean 😜

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@drsimonegold It was unnecessary for me a fit and healthy adult and posed way more risk than benefit.

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@CarolineCoramUK Yes! In Cheshire East, sleepy, sore throat and it smells like muck spreading but worse!

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

Well said

[Daniel O’Reilly @dapperlaughs]

Amount of people saying “Stay & fight”, like this is some war movie. You cant fight. You cant even protest without being called racist.

& Fight who? How? The whole country is fucked, the water companies robbed us & dumped shit in the water, you can’t swim anywhere you’ll get ill & die. The country is literally a shit hole.

The councils are bankrupt & cant even fix a pot hole & charge you council tax for the privilege of doing fuck all while robbing you.

Moneys taxed, cars taxed, petrols taxed, booze, food EVERYTHING is taxed, then if you manage to save enough money after its been taxed to buy a house you get taxed on that, then if you die and pass it to your kids that gets taxed. They literally want everything from the working man while they hide their money. Its a con, we are being conned.

& We are about to get taxed even more.

NHS is fucked. Cost of living fucked. Interest rates are fucked, & we got years of it getting worse before it gets better.

Londons a hell hole & unsafe after dark. I hate it.

The men think they are women, kids are encouraged to think about their sexuality & gender.

Our soldiers are getting stabbed.

Our police are pussies & the ones that aint get fired.

& that aint even getting started on illegal immigration, thats getting worse.

If my country ever needed me to actually fight id be there, 100%, but i ain’t gambling the lifes of my three daughters in the mean time, & even if they did survive growing up here for what? To live in a shit hole full of fucking wierdo’s. No thanks.

Where would i go? Somewhere with a backbone, a bit of sun & with less risk of your kids getting murderd, like Australia, Russia or fucking North Korea.

I whole heartedly encourage anyone with young kids that have the ability to leave to do so. Todays events in Southport have rocked me to the core, im sat here looking at my daughters feeling sad.

You can still work on trying to get your voice heard while your kids are safe.

I want my kids to live not survive.

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@GaryUsher_ Absolute bastards! I pray to god you’ve got them on cctv.

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@AvonandsomerRob Distilled water only for us and if it’s bottled it’s glass bottle not plastic!

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@DrHoenderkamp It’s completely unacceptable unless you’re lay on a sun bed or in water!! Nobody else wants to see that.

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@LeilaniDowding That poor, poor baby 😞 absolutely sickening

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@LeilaniDowding This absolutely disgusting, I can’t watch it. That poor, poor baby 💔

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@mattletiss7 @thomgibbs This is why you’ll always be the bigger and better person ❤️

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@mickfitzg @houseofcavani Navy Blue!

[Laura @LauraALeighton]

@EssexPR It should be Jerusalem or Land of Hope and Glory