Elsewhere in today’s TFI bulletin my Downtown colleague and fellow blogger Jim Hancock has, far more ably than I could, explained the political pressure that this week saw Prime Minister David Cameron take the rather reckless decision to offer an ‘in or out of Europe’ referendum if the Conservatives win an outright majority at the next election.

For most businesses I have spoken to, the uncertainty that this presents is far from helpful at a time when we live in a very uncertain world anyway – and the general view is that it makes the UK look a little immature, and more than a little parochial.

However, whether you are pro Europe or anti, the one thing that a vast majority of business owners will agree on is that many of the rules and regulations that surround employment law and the wider health and safety agenda that emanates from Brussels are an absolute minefield.

The cost of implementing and complying with such complex bureaucracy is nothing short of scandalous. It not only encourages poor staff to adopt a ‘where there’s blame, there’s a claim’ culture when they are dismissed for legitimate reasons; but it discourages business owners from recruiting for fear of being taken to the cleaners by unscrupulous employees, aided and abetted by state financed advisors.

As the son of a Trades Union activist, and as someone who became a politician to promote equality, fairness in the workplace and social justice, I am now disappointed to have to say that the pendulum has swung too far in favour of employees.

I support the minimum wage, equal pay for women and the rights of workers to be protected from genuine cases of unfair dismissal. However, it is simply a fact that sometimes a member of staff doesn’t fit the role they were appointed to, doesn’t have the skills they claimed to have, or fail to demonstrate the level of dedication and commitment that a job requires. In such cases dismissal should be an option, without the necessity of consulting with a Philadelphia lawyer.

And what protection for the business owner when a member of staff who you have invested time, energy, resource and money simply decides they have had enough, walk away, without the courtesy of working their notice period or having the professionalism, not to mention loyalty, of providing a smooth transition and handover? The answer, of course, is NONE!

However, on the point of EU inspired red tape, I have to say that I am of the opinion that it’s not them, it’s us.

I have visited pub play areas in Spain, seen building work taking place in Italy, observed how the Irish interpret the rules governing European funding programmes. None of them abide to the letter of the law to the nth degree as we in the UK do.

Our civil servants from Westminster to Westmoreland insist on every European I being dotted and T being crossed before they will approve a contract; issue a licence or provide a safety certificate. The word ‘advice’ is confused with ‘legally binding’ – but only here.

The French, the Germans, the Italians and our other euro partners are baffled by the UKs obsession with accepting every piece of advice Brussels throws at us. It’s not a renegotiation or a referendum we need. It’s a dose of common sense injected into the jobs-worth brigade, so that legislation is implemented flexibly and in the spirit in which much of it was meant.

There is no doubt that during the past decade there has been a re-emergence of the major Northern cities, Manchester leading the way with its spectacular regeneration on the back of the IRA bomb attack in the nineties, followed by the Commonwealth Games; Liverpool capitalising on culture in 2008; and Leeds managing to create a buoyant centre for professional and financial services.

Nonetheless, the chasm between the North of England and our counterparts in the South East has barely closed, with London and surrounding areas accounting for over one third of the UK economic activity, whilst we provide only a fifth.

This is not to bemoan or envy the success enjoyed by our capital city. I have gone on record recently as saying that without London’s success the UK could well be Greece!

However, for UK PLC to function effectively then it is essential that the North takes maximum advantage of the opportunities it has – and that means investment in our people, investment in our infrastructure and decentralisation of power from Westminster and the city of London.

In Germany comparable regions such as Brandenberg, Sacksen and Thüringen have all managed to grow relative to the rest of the country. Indeed, Germany has seven cities in the top 20 economic performing cities in Europe. Holland has two, as do the ‘basket cases’ that are Italy and Spain. The UK has just one. You know where.

The North was where the industrial revolution started, but although we should celebrate our past we cannot live in it. We need to listen to what the recent report from Think Tank IPPR North is saying about how we can begin to punch our weight as a regional giant once again.

They argue in the recent report ‘Northern Prosperity is National Prosperity’ that it is simply not good enough for London to be spending £1,000 per head on economic development, whilst we spend only £500 per head. Similarly the North invests just £37 per head on science and technology, compared to the £57 per head spent in the South East.

Downtown hosted a Roundtable discussion on this important report last Friday in Leeds, with a group of business leaders from across Yorkshire, and the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury and Leeds West MP Rachel Reeves.

There was broad agreement of the need for infrastructure improvements that cuts train travel times down significantly, making it easier to cross the North, rather than the obsession we appear to have in cutting the time it takes to get to London. And we need to recognise that in the twenty first century we should be able to get a direct flight to places like Beijing, Shanghai and Delhi, without travelling to Heathrow first.

Crucially, we need a regional business bank to invest in Northern businesses. And we need metro mayors in Manchester, Liverpool, Yorkshire, the North East and Lancashire who will have the strategic powers to help make all this happen. Boris’s for the North.

Downtown will be campaigning for and talking about this exciting agenda in 2013. I hope you come and join us. It’s time for another Northern revolution.

The recent elections that took place in Greece and France clearly demonstrated that the citizens of Europe do not agree with the austerity programme that has been mapped out for them by European political leaders, in particular the German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Alongside this, it has become apparent that the single currency ‘experiment’ has failed. It is inevitable now that the euro will be abandoned by a number of member states, and the only questions are when, how will this be managed, and how much damage will it cause the global economy?

Of course hindsight provides us with 20:20 vision and Euro sceptics will tell us ‘we told you so’.

However, as a pro European I certainly flirted with the notion that the UK ought to seek euro membership back in the 1990’s, as did many politicians, economists and decision makers. If we have nothing else to thank Gordon Brown for, it is a fact that unlike many of the chattering classes he saw the dangers associated with the single currency, and he has been proved right to keep us out.

We now know that the major problem with the euro zone is that no account was taken of the imbalance that exists across Europe’s economies – and, crucially, sign up to a common currency did not involve sign up to a consistent fiscal policy.

The damage that the collapse of the euro will do to the global economy, including ours, will not stop UKIP, the Tory right and other little Englanders from celebrating. They will see this as the beginning of the end of the UK’s membership of the European Union.

It shouldn’t – because on its own UK Plc is a tiny island that would be isolated and open to economic ravages that would make the last five years look like a walk in the park.

However, we do need to have a mature debate about the future of Europe, the role of the union, its objectives and strategy. We signed up to the ‘common market’ and those principles that were right for the great British public to support in the 1970’s around free trade and co-operation are as sound today as they were back then.

What nobody ever agreed to – or in the UK’s case were never consulted about – was the creeping Euro monster that now thinks it should be able to dictate how we do business, what our laws should be, how much taxation we should raise, and so it goes on.

Many believe that the EU has been the vehicle by which the Germans control Europe without having to win a war. The red tape, bureaucracy and sheer pettiness that comes out of Brussels has even the most euro friendly business leader’s tearing their hair out and looking for their UKIP application form.

And, if we are to prevent the whole discussion about our future in Europe from being hijacked by fringe politicians not just here but across the continent, then those political leaders from the mainstream must start to open their minds to a reversal of a process that has not led to a freer, more prosperous Europe, but a Europe that is hellishly expensive to service, ‘big brother’ like in its approach and increasingly out of touch with its peoples. 

It was, to say the least, somewhat bemusing to me to witness MP's this week, predominantly though not exclusively from the Tory benches, getting their knickers in a twist over the United Kingdom's membership of the European Community.

This is an old hobby horse of the right of the Conservative Party, and to hear many Euro sceptics talk you would think that our little island would be immune from all the ills that currently inflict us, from climate change through to the economic recession if only we would withdraw from the EC.

The current crisis surrounding the Euro currency, however, sort of blows their argument out of the water though. The truth is, as anyone who heard the Bank of England Governor Mervyn King speak in Liverpool last week will testify, the UK is inextricably linked to Europe.

Despite us not signing up for the Euro, our economic fortunes rely on the Euro Zone being a success. The fact that we have kept the pound offers us only a smidgen of protection from a Euro meltdown. Indeed, Chancellor George Osborne can cut or spend as much as he likes over the next three years. If the Euro Zone does crash the effects will be catastrophic for Britain.

Like it or not, we now live in a global economy. What happens in Greece matters to us. Germany's success, anywhere other than on a football field, is cause for celebration. Even the economic performance of faraway places such as China, the US and India will impact, albeit in a much smaller fashion, on UK PLC.

Withdrawal from the EC will not change any of this. We should all be disappointed, if not surprised, that, given the monumental challenges our country currently faces, a group of self indulgent MP's were happy to take up a chunk of parliamentary time to debate such a futile topic. Shame on them.