Last week's Budget seems to have been very well received, albeit by a predominantly conservative (deliberate small 'c') leaning media. It was, after all, a budget for the prosperous, benefiting as it did those with large pension pots who now won't be trapped in low-yielding annuities at retirement and those who can afford to save £15,000 a year in ISAs, or NISAs as they have become. This has been seen as a masterful piece of political craftsmanship, establishing the ground for a rally in Tory support in the run-up to next year's General Election. George Osborne's reputation as a political tactician par excellence was further cemented by a YouGov poll commissioned by the Sunday Times that showed that a surge in Tory support following the Budget had cut Labour's lead in the opinion polls to 1% from 8% just 7 days ago.
I must confess that when I heard the Budget on Thursday my first thought was that the Tories had given up on any chance of winning an outright majority in at the next Election. The Tories currently have 303 seats in the Commons and need another 23 for an outright majority. No doubt they have a list of their top target seats. They can't surely believe that there are people in these places with large pension pots and £15,000 every year to invest who didn't vote for them last time but will now thus be making all the difference? Nor can they believe that 1p off a pint and halving the tax on Bingo halls will persuade enough people to switch their voting intentions, thus pushing them over the finishing line. I can only think of two possible explanations for this particular Budget. The obvious one is that it was an attempt to shore up their support and prevent their voters from switching to UKIP.
The other is that the Tory High Command is so out of touch with ordinary people that it seriously believes that there are far more well-off people out there than in fact exist. That is, that most people are really like them, so policies that appeal to them will appeal to everyone else. And as for the lower orders (Cor Blimey Mary Poppins), then they will be satisfied with cheaper beer and Bingo.
This theory is not as fanciful as it appears. We did after all have Grant Shapps singularly ill-judged tweet, saying that the Conservatives were 'helping hardworking people do more of the things they enjoy' by cutting the Bingo tax and beer duty. More telling I think was the Michael Ignatieff's experience, as he retold it on BBCR4's Start The Week Programme a fortnight ago. In short, while pursuing an academic career at Harvard, he was persuaded to enter Canadian politics, eventually becoming the Leader of the Liberal Party, where he led them to their worst ever defeat in the elections of 2011. He made the point that during that election campaign he thought he was doing really well so his trouncing came as a tremendous shock. The reason he was sure he was doing well was that he spent all his time with people who supported him, campaigning in places that supported him and attending rallies full of people who adored him.
Ignatieff's experience was not an isolated incident. It was, in fact, a forerunner to that of the Republican Party in the 2012 Presidential Elections where Obama comprehensively defeated Romney. There are loads of great You Tube clips showing Republicans making grand and sincere claims for a Romney landslide and then showing their bewilderment and disbelief as the results come in showing an Obama victory. Here's Karl Rove embarrassing himself, and here is Sarah Palin doing it with knobs on. If you view these you will see a whole host of other suggested things to view that demonstrate how disconnected the Republicans were to the majority of ordinary Americans.
As for that bounce in the opinion polls, I had a closer look. The headline figure is Labour on 37% and the Tories on 36%. Yet for those voters living in households with incomes less than £25,000, then the figures were Labour - 42% and the Tories - 29%. Even in those households with incomes between £25,001 and £39,999, the figures were Labour - 42% and the Tories - 33%. These people account for the vast majority of voters – UK median household income in 2011/12 was £23,200 according to the ONS. I am not qualified to write knowledgeably about polls. However, what this tells me is that the Labour Party has everything to play for. But we must do two things. Firstly, we need to stop wasting resources campaigning in safe seats where all we are doing is working to increase margins of victory. Second, we must concentrate our efforts in campaigning and above all getting our vote out, in our target wards.
In any event, the local and European Elections in May will probably tell us a very interesting story.
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