SMALL FIRMS are Britain’s backbone.
Yet thousands are being denied cash from Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s £330billion bailout because of unacceptable delays in the system.
Despite 300,000 inquiries into the bailout scheme, only 28,000 firms completed applications, suggesting too much red tape.
Of these, only 6,000 have received any money, leaving 22,000 facing ruin.
High Street banks have shamefully left them high and dry by dragging their feet over granting vital loans.
But box-ticking bureaucrats at the state-owned body running the scheme, the grandly named British Business Bank, have added to the shambles.
The brainchild of Lib Dem Vince Cable during the Coalition government, this fat-cat quango is not fit for purpose.
But it holds the fate of millions of ordinary hard-working men and women in its hands.
SUN readers are today urged to sign a petition calling for our NHS staff to be awarded the George Cross.
Yesterday, we backed a proposal by Lord Ashcroft to honour our health heroes with the gallantry gong given for acts of bravery that did not take place in battle.
A No10 spokesman said: “The NHS is doing a fantastic job and the nation will want to find a way to say thank you when we have defeated this virus.”
SAS hero Andy McNab added: “The award of a George Cross would show an emotional appreciation.”
We are asking readers to sign the petition online at thesun.co.uk/georgecrossfornhs.
The Chancellor has belatedly ordered the bank’s bosses to force lenders to speed up the loans after learning just £1.15billion has so far been doled out.
Mr Sunak won the nation’s hearts when he promised he would do “whatever it takes” to save business from ruin.
But time is fast running out.
The BBB’s chairman Lord Smith of Kelvin, who recently sold his private Scottish island for a handy £1.4million, needs to get a grip.
His fellow lords also need to tune into the national mood.
Some peers are demanding their full daily allowance for attending the Lords even though they are just logging on to the proceedings from their own homes.
What a contrast between the attitude of these privileged few and the amazing spirit of the millions of ordinary Brits who have already sacrificed so much to help others in this crisis.
IT is good to hear Prince Harry warmly praising the spirit of the British people battling the virus.
He is spot on to say that Captain Tom Moore and our amazing NHS workers and volunteers represent the best of this nation.
But he has overstepped the mark by saying things in Britain are “better than we are led to believe through certain corners of the media.”
On a day when the UK coronavirus death toll topped 15,000, that comment sounds very hollow.
Especially as he is living nearly 6,000 miles away in a lavish Bel Air mansion.
