Author Archives: Oliver Townsend

How we lie to ourselves about debt

By Oliver Townsend | Fri 26th March 2021 - 2:00 pm

When I started my first job, I met with our finance officer. She was looking quite stressed, so I asked what was going on. She explained she was working out how much of our ‘bad debt’ to write off as an organisation. I was confused, naively.

Turns out, this is probably what most people know, but every year companies and organisations write off debt. They decide that even if someone owes them £50, they are likely never to get that money back – in short, it costs them more to chase the debt, than they’d ever make getting it back.

But then, some enterprising people worked out that there was a market there. Now, companies can get some of that back. So rather than writing it off completely, and getting nothing back, they can sell that debt to a debt market, for around £5 (on average, 10% of the debt value).

Posted in Op-eds and Wales | Tagged personal debt and Wales | 7 Comments

Remembering Cllr Ed Townsend: How you can help keep the Liberal Democrat flame alive in Newport

By Oliver Townsend | Sat 2nd July 2016 - 10:00 am

When we lost Dad the day before the Assembly elections, we were struck by the kindness shown by the Liberal Democrats. The messages of support and the respect Dad was held in meant a great deal to us.

We loved Dad as children and had a huge admiration of him as Lib Dem members as well.

Ed – as he was known by everyone else – had been a long-standing member, first of the Liberals and then the Liberal Democrats. He joined after Margaret Thatcher won her second term, saying then that he felt he had to do something.

He cut his early campaigning teeth in election campaigns in Birkenhead.

In the years since he moved to Newport in South Wales, he came just over 800 votes behind Labour in the Assembly elections, and only 1650 behind them in the 2010 General Election.

Posted in News | 3 Comments