Intro.
Spending more money in a UK-friendly way will particularly help with jobs, incomes and the services paid for by taxes. This website is designed around the ‘UK-friendly spend’. It gives you the names and a little more about relevant businesses and provides handy links. When you view and especially when you use the links provided you are stepping towards more friendly-spends and helping this site to function and prosper. It is a win-win outcome.
* What is a UK-friendly spend?
With a few exceptions, this means spending with UK-owned businesses (producers, retailers and service providers) and/or on products produced in the UK. UK products and services can be the best buy and they will usually be the greener option. Many UK Retailers are world-class. Some have expanded internationally All of these are contributing to our financial well-being.
This site will tell you of UK-friendly spend options available to you. You will be able to pick up relevant names and use links to listed businesses. The goal is to have 95% by value of relevant Producers and enough Retailers and Services businesses to cover practically all of your wants and needs and make your visits worthwhile.
There are 4 kinds of such spending –
1. PRODUCTS – A spend on a product made in the UK;
2. PRODUCTS – A spend with a UK-based producer where the product is made abroad in a facility owned or run by it and then sold internationally and the result is an addition to the UK economic pie; *
3. RETAILERS – A spend via a UK-based and owned retailer; and
4. SERVICES – A spend on a service provided or created by a UK-based & owned business. **
* Only a handful of companies fall into this category. From the listing of each, you can see what is produced in this country and what is not.
** This includes full ownership. It also includes a UK 50 % or majority holding where the business operates internationally and financially benefits the UK. In the latter circumstances, some details will be given.
Some may take a different view as to what should be included and excluded. The information is presented in such a way that you can apply your own demarcations if you prefer to do so.
* Why is spending some of my money this way important?
– Too much debt –
When about 10% of Government spending is on debt interest and money is borrowed to pay it we know the economic pie is too small.
In 2022/23, our government’s net debt interest spending was £111 billion, which is equivalent to 4.4% of GDP or 9.6% of government spending.
At the end of 2022/23 public sector net debt was £2.5 trillion which is equivalent to 100% of annual GDP. This is equivalent to around £38,000 per person in the UK. Since many do not work, the actual debt burden of the individual tax-payer is much higher. .
Info. source – The budget deficit: a short guide – House of Commons Library (parliament.uk)
The way we can help to reverse the trend is to favour businesses whose existence benefits us.
– Foreign Businesses Dominate –
Firstly, we are concerned there are too many Producers who produce abroad and then sell here. We can compare the circumstances of a Mercedes car produced in Germany and a Nissan car produced in the UK. A bigger slice will be taken in tax from the UK producer and there is a UK workforce enjoying income and paying tax to boot. Nissan will be sourcing some items and services locally.
Secondly, we are particularly concerned with takeovers and especially foreign company domination of the retail sector. The takeover of some famous UK Retailers come to mind like Clarks shoes (Chinese brand), Euro Parts (USA company brand), Harrods (Qatar company brand), Harvey Nicholson’s (Chinese company brand) and Hamleys (Indian company brand). The US internet search engines like Google and Bing help foreign international retailers get more prominence in search results than our UK businesses. Of the UK online market, Amazon has a 30% share and eBay a 10% share. There are lots of foreign participants. The highest UK share is taken by Sainsburys with a 4.6% share. Amazon gets well over 3 million searches a month.
Thirdly, the Services sector also has a big foreign presence and its growth is a worry. A good example is in car breakdown services. The market leader is the AA with 15 million customers. The nearest rival is the RAC which has less than half of that. The bottom line profit from the AA goes to two USA companies operating out of New York.
Fourthly, progress has been slow because many companies appear to qualify for a listing but don’t and key information is often not readily available
* QD outperforms AI with quicker and better results
– QD or AI? –
A.I. does not tick the box on this one. A few experiments were made with the Microsoft A.I. It is a slower system, the cheaters are not uncovered, the information is often out of date because it reproduces as written, it does not see beyond what is written and it does not follow some relevant threads which come to light during the investigative process. It does not assess the likely user experience on a website and whether the visitor will likely be pleased it was introduced to him/ her etc. This is relevant, especially to Retailers and Services Listings. Google was questioned and a completely wrong picture of a motorcycle company was given. On a 2nd attempt looking into UK motorcycle producers the ownership came up good but on a question about UK producers one brand was missed completely and an incorrect picture was given of another.
If you would like to compare a Producers search then try Teas & then try Jaguar. You will see the extra and more accurate information you get by using this site. In Retailers and Services AI totally fails to compete. In particular it does not factor in consumer feedback and businesses that appear to be British and are not are not filtered out.
QD aims to make your visits worthwhile for you. Besides the primary goal of helping UK businesses with listings & links there are other goals of enabling you to search for what you want easily, without clutter and to help you save overall searching time. With encouragement and volume visits the key will be available to maximise the potential of the site.
* Progress
Over 1100 listings have been made so far. Practically all known major Producers supplying the public are already included. There are outstanding necessary details for the few not yet listed. The Retail listings will have more complete content when businesses adopt and make listings. At the moment some content is item listed, other content uses listers categories and generic terms and some content is by a very basic few words. This means that sometimes you may well see sites and need to look in those sites to see whether they do cater for what you want. Following through to listed sites will help this site. Practically all sectors are covered and you should usually find relevant names and links. For Services, the most important sectors are covered. The site is not a finished product but a work in progress so please make allowances for that. Thankyou!
Thank you for visiting. Please visit often.