Bank Shares
Tory activists must be getting anxious. At the beginning it all made sense. Cut the size of government, re-energise local government, cut spending, regulation and quangos, increase personal responsibility and authority. Set the financial house in order and set the people free. Miles ahead in the polls, Labour might even be knocked into third place, Cameron was Prime Minister in waiting. But now? Oh dear.
Suddenly it was muddle over marriage and tax, then it was whether to cut and when, followed by schools set up anywhere without planning permission as long as Whitehall said yes, now it is discount shares in, wait for it, Banks.
There are two reasons why the Tory lead is slipping fast. One is that (for the first time I can remember, and I can remember every election since 1950) their election campaign is coming apart with wheels flying off all over the place. But their is another much more fundamental reason why someone has to get a grip. The campaign is treating the voters as gullible fools, when the reality is the most sophisticated and best informed electorate in history, in touch and communicating as never before. Harking back to Thatcher’s golden era with Sid and British Gas is infantile. Not least because everyone now knows that our energy supplies are far from secure, owned by foreigners, in some cases foreign governments and very expensive. Everyone knows after the killing it is all down hill.
Remember too those bastions of our financial bedrock that stood the test of wars, depressions and austerity, The Halifax and the Abbey National? Mutual societies without shareholders, owned by their customers. Then they were allowed in another Tory initiative to convert to shareholder companies and call themselves banks. Where are they now? The one is bust and the other was rescued by the Spanish. Not to mention Northern Rock, Bradford and Bingley etc.etc. The message needs to arrive at the headquarters of the Conservative party that there is now a new capitalism and their old model is dead. Nobody is quite sure what the new capitalism actually is, but everybody knows what it is not.
It is not too late for Cameron and Co, but it nearly is. Ask any London taxi driver who they think would make a good Tory and national leader if Cameron goes down. Only one name ever comes up. William Haig.