Mike Ashley批评Burnham高街振兴与仓储加税方案，称英国零售环境将继续恶化

Andy Burnham’s high street plan is ‘delusional’, says Mike Ashley
Mike Ashley, the retail billionaire behind Frasers Group, has lambasted Andy Burnham’s proposals to revive British shops as “delusional” and “populist”, and warned that the country’s high streets will be “further devastated” unless taxes are cut.
The broadside, contained in a letter to the prime minister and seen by the FT, comes just a day after Burnham sought to calm corporate nerves by saying that he wanted to “take pressure off” businesses.
The new prime minister has made reviving Britain’s high streets a key part of his political pitch
He has proposed funding business rates discounts for pubs and clubs by hiking rates on retailer-owned or third-party warehouses.
On Thursday Ashley labelled that idea “simply delusional”.
“Your comments about looking again at business rates in the next budget are of course welcomed but frankly a case of too little, too late,” he told Burnham, urging the prime minister to avoid jumping on “band wagons that only address part of the problem”.
Ashley, whose shops include Sports Direct, also rejected Burnham’s proposal to give councils more powers to stop “dodgy” vape shops and adult gaming centres from opening in their towns.
“Shortsighted or populist reactions to underlying business challenges are not the answer,” the billionaire wrote in his letter.
“You have the chance to make a difference, or get it horribly wrong . . . the hostile business climate can’t be allowed to continue or the high streets will be further devastated.”
Ashley said that he agreed with recent comments by Lord Stuart Rose, former boss of Marks and Spencer and a Conservative peer, who called Burnham’s plans “a lot of bollocks about nothing”.
Ashley has acquired a string of fallen retailers out of administration and most recently bought luxury department store Harvey Nichols in a pre-pack deal.
He said that he was saving “another great British retailer from financial oblivion, bringing it back into British ownership again”, but attacked the “dramatically increasing cost of employing people”.
The UK’s shoplifting problems were “getting much worse”, he added, estimating that his Frasers retail group was losing £40mn a year from thefts.
Burnham has said that he wants to change “rip-off Britain” but Ashley has argued that he is misguided in ruling out the use of recommended retail price (RRP) discounts.
The tycoon’s Sports Direct chain regularly promotes hefty discounts in its shop windows and through bargain bins. Its website also advertises “daily offers of up to 90% off the RRP”.
The promotions include discounts on brands such as Calvin Klein and Nike, as well as on products by Donnay and Jack Wills, which Ashley’s Frasers Group owns and for which it sets prices.
In his letter to Burnham, Ashley said that such discounting helps consumers with “their cost of living”.
He argued that regulators should take aim at “price fixing” and the control of goods by brands to shops that agree not to discount. The comment is a thinly veiled reference to his long-running feud with rival JD Sports, which often has greater access to premium sports products.
JD Sports has focused on the more premium end of sports fashion, which has led it to have exclusive ranges with the big sports brands and better access to in-demand products.
Ashley called out the “uncannily uniform” £134.99 pricing of England football shirts at the recent World Cup and appealed to self-professed football fan Burnham by saying it was “a huge amount of money for the average shopper in the street to pay”.
Ashley sent his letter to Downing Street on Thursday. He said he had yet to receive a response.