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Clare, the point about rates is that the valuations are all skewed. The current levels were set in 2008 at the height of the boom in property prices so there's effectively a windfall premium in the first place.

This year the multiplier has also been set using inflation figures from what was an abnormal period in September. The months either side were very different. Yet the government continue to plough ahead with a 5.3% increase using atypical data in the face of what is fast becoming a bloodbath on the high street.

That's what most retailers care about. The ability to afford to pay a tax that has absolutely no connection to that ability. Unlike most other tax systems.

Very little of our rates payments go towards the upkeep of roads etc so the issue of cleanliness has little bearing on where I see my money going. You're labouring under a misapprehension that has been prevalent for some time. The old idea that your rates were solely going to pay for the upkeep of your local environment went out the window when UBR was brought in.

Even if it did, having clean streets and empty bins wouldn't help me find the money to pay an ever increasing rates bill if customers are still put off coming into the town due to extortionate car parking charges. Or the fact that another mall has just been built a few miles away (probably with free parking) or that the economy is being depressed by government policy and/or wider economic issues.

As for this Portas/Schapps competition, I'm currently trying to calm down about it enough to write a coherent piece on it myself. The idea that towns should now enter into some kind of reality TV style race to 'win' a share of a paltry handout is frankly demeaning. It certainly shows that the government has very little grasp of the plight of retailers or the need for urgency in properly targeted initiatives on issues such as rates bills.

I've tried hard not to criticise Mary for her review. I think she was placed in a difficult position in being asked to carry it out. The fact that the government seemed to think that someone off the telly was qualified to deal with the serious problems building up in a key area of the economy was not really her fault.

However if this charade is now going to be extended into these sorts of PR stunt initiatives while people watch their jobs and businesses evaporate, I for one won't feel like being magnanimous about it for much longer.

By referring to this initiative as a 'Golden Ticket' Schapps presumably sees himself as Willy Wonka with retailers cast as eager schoolchildren tearing open chocolate bars in the hope that they might still have a livelihood by Christmas. In which case I can only assume Mary Portas is an Oopah Loompah.