Friday 10 February 2012

What did Business do to make the Tories hate it so?

It's Friday so time for a Why oh Why piece....

What was Cameron doing in Sweden yesterday discussing old people working and a 'Golden Skirt' policy to get women in the Boardroom. How is this helping the economy and the Country?

What was he doing copying Ed Milliband in the ill-thought out attack on Stephen hester's bonus...allowing a traditional media witch-hunt to grow out of control?

What happened to the plans for growth and credit easing?

What are there apparently advanced discussions (don't ask for source citiation on this one, confidential) on some kind of Mansion/Council tax deal on big houses in return for an earlier move to a higher tax free allowance?

The attacks on business are legion. You would think were you a foreigner coming to Britain in the last few weeks that a die hard socialist Government was in charge desperate to please its constiuents by making vainglorious attacks on evil capitalism.

But no, allegedly we have Coalition government of Orange Book Liberals and Tories. This is not how they are acting though. Personally, I think Cameron has chosen the Blair strategy of ignoring the right entirely not on idoelogical grounds, but purely becuase it plays to the 'centre.' Which tells me the internal polls at no10 are saying a defeat in the next General election is likely and i would agree with that for different reasons. So now we have sham policies attacking the wealthy and perceived social injustices in the workplace - all good for getting left leaning votes. Clearly, as with Blair Cameron  thinks that Tunbridge Wells is going to vote Blue no matter what he does, so he may as well focus on his appeal the Streatham omnibus folk.

There is of course a small hole in this strategy, as Blair found, the core can move and can be eroded - to the point where it is too small to campaign or support or care. Business too, the backers of the Tories, have little incentive to back this populist nonsense; where will the donations come from?

And of course, with no economic recovery there can be no election win.Full Stop. The desperation to focus on anything-but-the-economy has to be the wrong strategy.

It's interesting though and cuts to the hear tof why I started writing this blog in 2006 - which triumphs, Politics or Economis?

23 comments:

Old BE said...

1) look out for what the government does, not what it makes fluffy speeches about

b) fixing council tax and making it more of an actual property value tax and reducing payroll taxes is almost certainly a good idea for "business"

iii) your final point is important but are the Right of the Tory party going to split and campaign against Cameron's team or will they bide their time until there is a Conservative government?

SumoKing said...

The Tories were still so toxic after 15 years in the wilderness that they couldn't land a knockout blow on the dying horrific chimera that was the Brown administration, hence the coalition. So much for core erosion.

No wonder Cameron is panicing that he's out of a job and at the next "tick the box for your preferred kingathon", he's got to carry the blame for everything being shitt now, aswell as trying to flap a "ooh but labour will just, err, err sort of give you back all that stuff you are angry about us taking away and that is a bad thing" bogey man at spazy Ed (it is a bad thing but good luck flogging that to an electorate that thinks it can just vote for whatever it wants)

The only thing that might save them is economic resurgence and there is no political will for that since it will take cheap energy that does not appeal to Neo Greenies, the scrapping of planning that won't appeal to the house price mafia, dropping tax on low and middle income earners which won't appeal to higher earners

there is a ton of other tweaks that'll piss various groups off but tinkering with the NHS and pissing about with benefits is doing fcuk all to fix the economy

BlackRaven said...

SumoKing, if you want to stimulate demand you actually need to reduce tax on higher rate payers, companies, dividends, cgt, etc. rather than lower and middle income households.

CU, Blair never lost an election, even the BLiar crew hounding him. the political consensus in the country is against the measures that would be needed to stimulate the economy. a politician could gamble and make deeply unpopular changes, they would probably lose the next election though.

Steven_L said...

Would you expect to lose out on a 'mansion tax' and higher 0% allowance then CU?

What would change your mind? Cutting the 40% rate? Raising the 40% threshold?

Being a young man with a young family (and a mortgage one presumes) you must admit you are doing well interest rate wise at the expense of people cashing in their pensions, all assisted by Mssrs. King and Osborne?

Anonymous said...

Cameron is basically an idiot.

He is trying to appeal to the mythical "center ground" when there is no such place. Those that haven't decided how to vote are not "the center ground" - they are a special case whose voting habits are capricious.

Cameron should be reaching out to those that no longer vote at all or who vote UKIP, but since he is very much part of the problem. His followers are those that believe Thatcher and Churchill could never have possibly won an election, whilst Heath could never have possibly lost. History has already shown them to be wrong, so why do they persist in such thinking?

The Tories will lose the next election not because they have failed to lean to the left, but because yet more of their supporters will finally give up on them and vote UKIP or not vote at all.

Electro-Kevin said...

Cameron behaves as he does because he is a Lefty, not because of some clever strategy.

It's best not to vote for him again if you want real Tories in power.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Cameron is a relatively spineless jelly who sadly has only belief: environmentalism. No doubt he is egged on by that dozy sloane handbag-designing bint he's married to.

CityUnslicker said...

SL - hardly in the mansion tax bracket, but as a higher rate payer increasing the tax free allowance won't matter.

None of these help business, fixing business rates would BE, not personal rates.

My worry is that none of this is dealing with economic matters, just personal grandstanding.

only on education do these seem to have got it right.

Old BE said...

Cutting payroll taxes on the low paid doesn't help business?!

Roy S said...

Youve only gotta watch Question Time regularly (eg last nite) to see that the populace apparently doesnt like anything remotely real Tory. All the left wing liberal stuff gets the cheers. I just think Cameron's modus operandi is based on that kind of premise.

andrew said...

not so bothered if he is pro business or not - governments should be (imho) neutral to suspicous on business

am bothered whether or not he is pro market and this is what i hoped the cons would be

- simple, lightweight regs - low barriers to entry
- simple taxes - no special subsidies- no bail-outs
- simply stop trying to be clever and changing things

rbs is business - banking is the market

someone put it much better than i ever could

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

Budgie said...

I am not surprised Cameron's wheels are falling off, he always was Heath-with-no-brains.

Let us examine one of his stupid policies: Windmillery. No one would put there own money into purely commercial windmills if it wasn't for the CAGW hoax. Yet the last 14 years shows that CO2 increase has de-coupled from temperature; but we knew this occurs from the geological record anyway. Windmills are a typical political failure.

Then his Carrier/Harrier cuts. So sensible (I don't think) that the Americans have acquired our supposedly useless Harriers. Just when he does it, the Argies start rattling their sabres. Surprise! Good one Cameron.

So many examples of Tory stupidity, but time for one more: "In Europe, but not run by Europe". This is incorrect on every level: it is not "Europe" but the EU; we are a European country, but we don't have to be an EU dominated one; "not run by [the EU]" is not on offer and Cameron must know this.

Anonymous said...

"No doubt he is egged on by that dozy sloane handbag-designing bint he's married to."

Watch it, sunshine. You're talking about one of the 2,348 women I love.

Bill Quango MP said...

I like Sam Cam
And its one of Cameron's few saving graces that he doesn't need to send her out before his speeches as warm up act to get the media onside.

At least..not yet.

Anonymous said...

"What did Business do to make the Tories hate it so?" - It fucked the economy, city boy.
Its gonna get ridden like a cheap whore; like The Press is for the expenses scandal. Parliament is supreme. Business needs to learn where power lies in the UK.
Bankers are getting a taste at the moment, havent you figured this out yet?
Next stop - land tax.

Electro-Kevin said...

Budgie - HMS Dauntless could neutralise the whole Argentian air force on her own.

Otherwise I agree with you about DC.

rogerh said...

So, we reach the central problem with Democracy "do we do the right thing by our country, or do we stay elected?".

Simples, stay elected.

Budgie said...

E-K, yes we are told that Dauntless could take on the entire Argentinian air force and win. I do not believe it.

One Exocet (say on a disguised trawler), or a lucky plane in a multi aircraft attack, or a lone frogman is all it takes. Infallible in the context of war is mere hubris.

On another Defence issue the F35 has considerable problems. I understand the Typhoon has a takeoff of 300 meters and the QE carriers are 280m long. I wonder if it is possible to develop a short takeoff maritime version in place of the delayed F35? Would Cameron allow this?

Budgie said...

Anon 1:26am: No, it was not business that brought the [UK] economy down, it was politicians. Specifically Brown and Balls. Remember "no more boom and bust"?

Brown and Balls made the laws, created the regulations and set the atmosphere that everyone else had to work under. They expanded the money supply into a property boom. They were warned; they ignored the warnings; the bust came.

Even Brown did not blame business when he was in power: he said: "it started in America". Indeed it did. But again because of politicians. Bush got rid of Glass-Steagall. The CRA, passed by Carter enhanced by Clinton, with the support of Obama, made USA banks lend to those that the banks knew could not repay.

It all ended in tears. Politicians' real duty is to care for a system of universal laws, not to traduce legislation for the purposes of fashionable social engineering, whose outcomes usually have unintended consequences.

What is going wrong now is Cameron's fault: not because everything wrong is done by Cameron, but because he has the power to correct the wrongs, make the laws and set the atmosphere. He could revitalise the UK. The policies that would work are well known but unfashionable. He has shown he is incapable of doing it.

Jan said...

Yes but at least the country can recoup some of Bliar's ill-gotten gains with a mansion tax and slime-ball Mandelson's too so bring it on I say

dearieme said...

When did "business" become a euphemism for "banks"?

Anonymous said...

Dave is a professional politician, he doesn't do conviction.

Anyhow, as I've said before, printing money & taxation on income isn't enough to keep Ponzi welfarism going. The State must now seize capital assets from property owners.

Once every last £ of private wealth is gone, Britain will collapse.

Dave is only doing what is necessary to defer the collapse so it's someone else's problem.

Anonymous said...

Also, the once-delayed elections for PCCs could be an interesting barometer of public option. We have the buffoon Prescott wanting Humberside. However, suppose 30 plus of the elected PCCs were not Party aligned? I have just an inkling 'localism' may be a Tory own-goal.