About me Philip Smith-Lawrence

This blog is written by me, Philip Smith-Lawrence, to enable me to reply to the anonymous blogger and the newspaper journalist, who have both been on a campaign of disinformation, which to some has worked. The nonsense written by a journalist in a national newspaper, is the same journalist that has lied to get his children into better schools! Not a good thing to do when you are exposing liars and cheats in the national press!

I will address the antics of the journalist in a more indepth, in a separate blog post. 

It is still an ongoing situation with the anonymous blogger which started in 2009. The anonymous blog has contributed to the company being wound up and me being banned as a director for 10 years. I was banned for publishing misleading 'POTENTIAL' earnings information.

There is also wrong information about this whole affair which has been published, by a journalist in the national press. He has gotten some of his facts wrong, and not even bothered to get court transcript to use the actual facts. It does seem he is intent on getting at the previous owner of the business (whose was named in the article), whilst also tarnishing a product and a company that has nothing to do with me, save for the fact that I sold the product for the company, as a self employed sales person.

In December 2008 I took over a company called Advanced Media Information Limited (AMI Ltd). It was a young company with great potential, and there had been a pilot of the franchise model operated that had proven the business model worked,  and that is what attracted me to the company.

The company sited digital touch screen information kiosks in hotel foyers to assist hotel guests in locating local attractions and businesses in the local area, an area that the hotel guests may not be familiar with.

It was in early 2009 that a number of blogs and discussion forums appeared on the internet, set up by existing franchisees, others were set up by persons unknown.  At first they were aimed at the previous owner of the business, but the focus soon changed to me, and that focus on me has continued to this day, for whatever reason(s), I don’t know?

The anonymous blogger has never identified him or herself, yet they consistently quote disinformation and they do not even have the decency to allow me a right of reply on their blog, nor have they made themselves known.

When I took over the company it already had a number of franchisees, which I inherited and which the court accepted. Some of the franchisees made a success of their franchised business, but this has never been acknowledged by journalists, but this fact has been acknowledged by the District Judge sitting at the High Court, however other franchisees struggled, which was also accepted by the District Judge sitting at the High Court.

I would like all those that understand the business of franchising to name me a franchise operation that doesn’t have franchisees that struggle?

The majority of franchisees that I had inherited didn’t even start to operate their business, for whatever reason(s). I don’t know why they never started their business, but despite trying to contact them, by various means, they never ever replied to any of my requests for contact!

Throughout my tenure at the business I tried to help any and all the franchisees that wanted help – with one to one meetings, training courses, help with recruiting sales people, training of their sales people and ensuring that the hotel sites were happy. I even brought in self employed sales people who went out and sold advertising space onto the kiosks and proved that the business model worked. All this documented and verifiable.

Some, maybe one or more of the franchisees, decided that they were not getting what they wanted from their franchised business, so rather than air their concerns at a meeting of other franchisees, attended by myself and the company sales staff, which was held on a Sunday and lasted for three hours, they decided to go to the CIB, and the rest is history as they say, or is it?

The result has been that the company was closed by the court in February 2012 and I was disqualified from being a director for 10 years. I will post online the District Judge’s summation when I receive it.

There are two sides to every story and in this blog I will state the facts as they are that will rebut the disinformation of the anonymous blogger and put right the ‘hack’ that wrote the piece in the ‘ragtop’ he works for.  I am in receipt of all the documentation that the CIB has had, that same documentation that they used to draw up the winding petition for Advanced Media Information Limited (AMI Ltd). To my knowledge the anonymous blogger does not have this information, and nor does the ‘hack’, yet they still comment on the situation?

This is an ongoing situation as the company, Advanced Media Information, was wound up in the High Court in February 2012 and for pragmatic reasons, I did not defend the winding up order, but I maintain that the accusations in the petition of the Secretary of State are/were wholly refuted by me. A letter to this effect was accepted by the presiding judge, and is on file.

I will be posting over time, all the documents I have relating to this situation and the evidence that the Government decided to use against me.

I have often wondered how a company can go from being invited to a private luncheon with the North West’s great and good, hosted by a billionaire property developer and attended by a The Right Honourable Mark Prisk MP, Minister of State for Business and Enterprises, to the same company being closed down in the space of 18 months?

Please feel free to contact should you wish to discuss any of the above.

Thank you for your time.

Regards,

Philip Smith-Lawrence

Omni gaming device - Skyrim

If you love gaming you will love this piece of kit.

Do you agree?

Philip Smith-Lawrence agrees ;-)

I think the USAF should drop leaflets over NORTH KOREA promoting the film Team America World Police.- Part Two Kim Jong Who?

Philip Smith-Lawrence believes that you should read this article courtesy of the Economist.

Margaret Thatcher Freedom fighter Now especially, the world needs to hold fast to Margaret Thatcher’s principles ONLY a handful of peacetime politicians can claim to have changed the world. Margaret Thatcher was one. She transformed not just her own Conservative Party, but the whole of British politics. Her enthusiasm for privatisation launched a global revolution and her willingness to stand up to tyranny helped to bring an end to the Soviet Union. Winston Churchill won a war, but he never created an “-ism”. The essence of Thatcherism was to oppose the status quo and bet on freedom—odd, since as a prim, upwardly mobile striver, she was in some ways the embodiment of conservatism. She thought nations could become great only if individuals were set free. Unlike Churchill’s famous pudding, her struggles had a theme: the right of individuals to run their own lives, as free as possible from micromanagement by the state. In her early years in politics, economic liberalism was in retreat, the Soviet Union was extending its empire, and Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek were dismissed as academic eccentrics. In Britain the government hobnobbed with trade unions (“beer and sandwiches in Number 10”), handed out subsidies to failing nationalised industries and primed the pump through Keynesian demand management. To begin with the ambitious young politician went along with this consensus (see article). But the widespread notion that politics should be “the management of decline” made her blood boil. The ideas of Friedman and Hayek persuaded her that things could be different. Most of this radicalism was hidden from the British electorate that voted her into office in 1979, largely in frustration with Labour’s ineptitude. What followed was an economic revolution. She privatised state industries, refused to negotiate with the unions, abolished state controls, broke the striking miners and replaced Keynesianism with Friedman’s monetarism. The inflation rate fell from a high of 27% in 1975 to 2.4% in 1986. The number of working days lost to strikes fell from 29m in 1979 to 2m in 1986. The top rate of tax fell from 83% to 40%. Not for turning Her battles with the left—especially the miners—gave her a reputation as a blue-rinse Boadicea. But she was just as willing to clobber the right, sidelining old-fashioned Tory “wets” and unleashing her creed on conservative strongholds, notably by setting off the “big bang” in the City of London. Many of her pithiest put-downs were directed at her own side: “U-turn if you want to,” she told the Conservatives as unemployment passed 2m. “The lady’s not for turning.” She told George Bush senior: “This is no time to go wobbly!” Ronald Reagan was her soulmate but lacked her sharp elbows and hostility to deficits. She might not be for turning, but she knew how to compromise. She seized on Mikhail Gorbachev as a man she “could do business with” despite warnings from American hawks. She backed down from a battle with the miners in 1981, waiting until she had built up sufficient reserves of coal three years later. For all her talk about reforming the welfare state, the public sector consumed almost the same proportion of GDP when she left office as when she came to it. She was also often outrageously lucky: lucky that the striking miners were led by Arthur Scargill, a hardline Marxist; lucky that the British left fractured and insisted on choosing unelectable leaders; lucky that General Galtieri decided to invade the Falkland Islands when he did; lucky that she was a tough woman in a system dominated by patrician men (the wets never knew how to cope with her); lucky in the flow of North Sea oil; and above all lucky in her timing. The post-war consensus was ripe for destruction, and a host of new forces, from personal computers to private equity, aided her more rumbustious form of capitalism. The verdict of history Criticism of her comes in two forms. First, that she could have done more had she wielded her handbag more deftly. Hatred, it is true, sometimes blinded her. Infuriated by the antics of left-wing local councils, she ended up centralising power in Whitehall. Her hostility to Eurocrats undermined her campaign to stop the drift of power to Brussels. Her stridency, from her early days as “Thatcher the milk snatcher” to her defenestration by her own party, was divisive. Under her the Conservatives shrank from a national force to a party of the rich south (see Bagehot). Tony Blair won several elections by offering Thatcherism without the rough edges. The second criticism addresses the substance of Thatcherism. Her reforms, it is said, sowed the seeds of the recent economic crisis. Without Thatcherism, the big bang would not have happened. Financial services would not make up such a large slice of the British economy and the country would not now be struggling under the burden of individual debt caused by excessive borrowing and government debt caused by the need to bail out the banks. Some of this is true; but then without Thatcherism Britain’s economy would still be mired in state control, the commanding heights of its economy would be owned by the government and militant unions would be a power in the land. Because of the crisis, the pendulum is swinging dangerously away from the principles Mrs Thatcher espoused. In most of the rich world, the state’s share of the economy has stubbornly risen. Regulations—excessive as well as necessary—are tying up the private sector. Businesspeople are under scrutiny as they have not been for 30 years and bankers are everyone’s favourite bogeyman. And with the rise of China state control, not economic liberalism, is being hailed as a model for emerging markets. For a world in desperate need of growth, this is the wrong direction. Europe will never thrive until it frees up its markets. America will throttle its recovery unless it avoids overregulation. China will not sustain its success unless it starts to liberalise. This is a crucial time to hang on to Margaret Thatcher’s central perception: that for countries to flourish, people need to push back against the advance of the state. What the world needs now is more Thatcherism, not less.

Baroness Thatcher - RIP. by Philip Smith-Lawrence

 I have read and heard, so much vitriol from the cerebrally challenged, who are mostly under the age of 40, it is disgusting. They haven't got a clue about what or whom they are talking about.
Unless you are 40+ and lived through the tenure of Baroness Thatcher as Prime Minister, and you may not have agreed with what Baroness Thatcher did, you did not experience the change in a nation.These morons spouting their bile don't have a clue about the good she did for this country, the world of politics and the future stability of the world.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but base it in fact and not on hearsay.

As a leader of our country at a time of economic downturn and in the grip of the unions, she took up the mantle and stood fast, turned the tables on the unions and brought prosperity to back to our nation. In short she put the 'Great' back into Great Britain.
She not only subtlety inspired women to achieve in a male oriented world, she inspired some of the greatest British business people we see today - more importantly, she gave them the opportunity. She devised and cultivated the enterprise culture, a culture that has subsequently been fostered by other political parties, both in the UK and across the world.

Baroness Thatcher earned the title 'The Iron Lady' for many reasons,not least her views and actions on and against terrorism, the Iranians can attest to that. The IRA also learnt the hard way too,as did the Argentinians.

I have watched and listened to the left wing hypocrites, such as Hatton et al and Terry Christian - wearing their designer suits and still charging exorbitant fee's for public appearances - and they still can't structure a coherent argument against Baroness Thatcher's policies.Is it any wonder that the supporters of the left wing are misguided morons when the leaders are cerebrally challenged hypocrites, with a complete lack of understanding of the word respect?

Also, let us not forget that many a political leader from around the world sought her council,after she left office, including on a regular basis,Tony Blair.

Any great leader will always have their dissenters voicing their opinions, Chruchill did,but their legacy lives on long after the voice have fallen silent.
Baroness Thatcher, wife, mother, grandmother and inspiration to a nation.

Philip Smith-Lawrence is a northerner.

Once upon a time, in the Kingdom of Heaven, God went missing for six days. Eventually, Archangel Michael found him on the seventh day resting. He enquired of God, 'Where have you been?'

God pointed downwards through the clouds. Archangel Michael looked puzzled and said, 'What is it?'

'It's a planet,' replied God, 'and I've put LIFE on it. I'm going to call it Earth and it's going to be a great place of balance.'

'Balance?' inquired Michael, still confused.

God explained, pointing down to different parts of the Earth. 'For example, North America will be a place of great opportunity and wealth, while South America is going to be poor; the Middle East over there will be a hot spot, and Russia will be a cold spot. Over there I've placed a continent of white people and over there is a continent of black people.'

God continued, pointing to the different countries.

This one will be extremely hot and arid while this one will be very cold and covered in ice.'

The Archangel, impressed by God's work, then pointed to another area of land and asked, 'What's that?'

'Ah,' said God. That's the North of England, the most glorious place on earth. There are beautiful people, seven Premiership football teams in the North West alone, and many impressive cities; it is the home of the world's finest artists, musicians, writers, thinkers, explorers and politicians. The people from the North of England are going to be modest, intelligent and humorous and they're going to be found travelling the world. They'll be extremely sociable, hard-working and high-achieving, and they will be known throughout the world as speakers of truth.'

Michael gasped in wonder and admiration but then proclaimed, 'What about balance God, you said there will be BALANCE!'

God replied very wisely, 'Wait till you see the bunch of tossers I'm putting down South!

You have found me!!

If you are searching for information on me Philip Smith-Lawrence, then you have found me. But remember there are two sides to every story, so why not just contact me and ask me what you want to know.

If you have searched for information about me you must have my contact details, if not email me at prsl@me.com and I will be more than happy to reply.