The City needs to start planning for a leftist Labour government
THE TORIES are in trouble. The latest daily opinion poll from YouGov (for The Sun) confirms yet again that the Labour party would easily win the General Election were it held tomorrow. The Tories are on 33 per cent, Labour on 38 per cent and the Lib Dems and Ukip tied on 11 per cent. England has followed Wales and Scotland in becoming a fragmented four party system.
All the polls scream the same message: even though the economy is recovering, and despite the fact that the Tories are more trusted on the economy, Labour’s lead remains, seemingly impregnable. The latest Electoral Calculus numbers suggest that there is a 74 per cent chance of a Labour majority and just a six per cent chance of a Tory one. Betfair’s political market isn’t quite as bearish but puts the Tories’ chance at around a fifth.
There is support for Labour from many demographics. Here are two interesting snapshots: a recent poll suggested that 37 per cent of those who voted Lib Dem in 2010 have switched to Labour, one of the key shifts of the past two years (the other is the rise of Ukip, primarily but not exclusively at the expense of the Tories). Another fascinating YouGov poll, highlighted by the excellent Mike Smithson of PoliticalBetting.com, shows that 57 per cent of teachers back Labour, just 16 per cent the Tories, eight per cent the Lib Dems, eight per cent Ukip and eight per cent Greens. Needless to say, the situation could still be turned around by the Tories.
But for now at least, the City needs to face reality: it should start contingency planning for a Labour government led by Ed Miliband, committed to the 50p tax, attacks on “predatory business”, a mansion tax, a hike in corporation tax and the rest. Businesses will understandably hate such a prospect – but they can’t afford to remain in denial.
QUANGOCRATS RULE OK
THE CLAIM that the coalition has been stuffing quangos with its supporters is so untrue as to be almost funny. Last year was the first since 1996-97 that Tory supporters appointed to public bodies outnumbered Labour ones, and then only slightly; it was Labour, not the Tories, that mastered the art of appointing its allies to run the public sector. In 1997-98, the first year of the Tony Blair government, Labour appointees accounted for 74.9 per cent of all those for whom a political affiliation was known. Labour’s share of appointments never fell below 54 per cent during the party’s time in office, which ended in 2010.
In the coalition’s first year in office, in 2010-11, 52.3 per cent of appointments still went to Labour, against just 19 per cent for the Tories; in 2011-12, Labour’s share shot up to an astonishing 77 per cent, as if the election had never happened; finally, in 2012-13, Labour’s share fell back to 33 per cent and the Tories’ rose to 36.7 per cent.
The left is much better at appointing like-minded folk to run the state; the Tories are usually useless at it but are tentatively catching on. Far more Labour supporters and activists tend to apply for public sector positions, which puts further pressure on outcomes.
The data isn’t perfect, unfortunately, which means all of this needs to be caveated. The Public Appointments Commissioner publishes figures broken down according to whether or not appointees declare an affiliation to a political party.
Yet only a small minority of appointees admit to being politically active, and that number has fallen from a fifth a dozen or so years ago to under a tenth today.
My guess is that many of the appointees who don’t declare themselves hail from a centre-left background and that centre-right types are generally more likely to want to focus on private sector jobs; but this is only a hunch. What we do know is that it is utter nonsense to claim that the Tories are handing political appointments en masse to their supporters.
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