The North Briton

—The man who owns a design and advertising firm with an airline on his client list that rents subsidised office space from Business Link due to lack of affordable office space in Newcastle city centre

—The man who started a web-design company and was told by Business Link that they would only give him startup funding if he spent a portion of it paying a company they recommended to design his website

—The sandwich shop owner who keeps fourteen thousand pounds in a tin in his wardrobe and that only paid fifty pounds in tax last year

—The small businessman who overheard the claims of the sandwich shop owner above, and now deals widely in the black economy

—The school caretaker who points to a significant oversupply of primary schools in Newcastle

—The primary teacher who has friends that are moving abroad due to lack of teaching jobs

—The A-level student that plans to study primary teaching in September on the advice of the careers service at her college

—The two men who usually work together on nightclubs that have received an eight thousand pound government grant to research educational software through an organisation that employs one of their girlfriends

—The musician known to an employee of a public funding body that was asked to draw up a five thousand pound list of equipment that he wanted as some funding was going spare