Who to vote for, Mikey47

Normally I would add a question mark at the end of a title like this and debate the issue with myself leaving the question hanging. But, egged on in their comments on yesterday's post by Democracy Man (who can readily guess who I'll vote for) and Mikey47 (who asked for some real reasons to vote in a particular way) I'll tell you what I actually think.

All elections are bigged up as the most important in a generation. This is the only one that has really felt that way to me for a long time. The Ted Heath "who runs the country?" election in 1974 felt that way and was inconclusive. But Heath hadn't done enough in government to justify re-election and we had a truly awful 5 years of a weak and eventually minority Labour government, the IMF bail-out and the trade unions' winter of discontent.

So the election that turned out to be the most important in my lifetime was 1979. It didn't feel that way at the time: it felt a depressing choice between failure, an unknown quantity in Margaret Thatcher and an attractive middle ground with the newly formed SDP-Liberal Alliance. Fortunately the country set itself on a sustainable course under Margaret Thatcher. I was disappointed at the time as a member of the SDP and it was an uncomfortable, rocky ride at first but with the hindsight of history I can see I was wrong then to oppose Thatcher. Her reforms were desperately needed and the fact that we have had one of the strongest rather than one of the weakest economies in Europe since then can be attributed directly to her government's reforms in the 1980s.

There is a huge risk that we now throw all of that away.

First let's contemplate the extremely unlikely - a majority Corbyn government. The damage would be colossal and immediate. The financial sector makes up over 10% of our economy. The prospect of a transaction tax and the seizure of 10% of the shares of large companies would kill capital markets overnight. Floats on the stock exchange would become a rarity and international businesses would quit London. Many of the 330,000 additional rate taxpayers who contribute over a third of all income tax work in the City. They are highly mobile and would migrate overseas. Then tens of thousands of lower paid jobs would steadily come under threat of being switched abroad, only this time the job would go not the person.

If Mikey47 doubts this, he should ask what I would have done if a Corbyn-led government had been elected in 2005 when I was working for a corporate and running a business that had its production facilities in the USA, Germany and China. A senior management team of three was based in the UK, but we could have departed overnight for Germany or the USA. The pension taper alone would probably have been enough to ensure we did. Had there still been production facilities in the UK (history I won't go into) the option of basing the central team abroad would still have been there. (You don't need to guess - I'd probably have gone to the USA though it might have been easier to decamp to Germany first). Write that story tens of thousands of times over.....

Investment has been weak since 2016, wreaking insidious but significant damage on the economy. It would collapse overnight. As we rely on capital inflows to balance our persistent trade deficit McDonnell would get his financial crisis which he would use to take "emergency measures". There would be prolonged legal wrangles over attempts to nationalise utilities below market value. Our international status would be fundamentally changed by support for every "radical" cause on the planet. As someone has said, this isn't Wilson or Callaghan or Blair or Brown. This is Hugo Chavez.

You might say why contemplate what isn't going to happen? Corbyn can't possibly win. I agree but even a minority government can do stuff. Supported by the almost equally crackpot SNP and moderated only by the LibDems a minority Corbyn government could do huge damage. Johnson could have gone on a long time with a majority of minus whatever in a gridlock situation; so could Corbyn. A minority Corbyn government would still be a 100% Corbyn cabinet, with control over foreign policy, for example.

Mikey47 said he felt we might end up with a hung parliament. That is a very real risk: many sources are saying it would take only a few tens of thousands of targeted tactical votes to deny Johnson a majority and even create a Corbyn-led government. Some say this could happen without Labour even winning any more seats than they have currently.

My problem with a hung parliament is that it really will solve nothing. Oh sure, Brexit might be fudged with a second referendum between a Brexit in name only and remain. The result wouldn't matter, as it wouldn't solve anything. Farage would be as important a figure as ever and the argument would rumble on as strongly as ever. We would not exactly be popular with our EU "friends", still chucking rocks at them in their Parliament. The festering resentment in the country would be colossal.

The only way I can see any chance of a healing process in the country is a convincing Johnson win. We leave the EU and get on with trade deals, investment in the UK strengthens and if things go ok the mood will change. There will still be many who will sadly reflect that we should have stayed in the EU but there is a chance that we can put it behind us, at least for most people and move on.

Won't we be worse off outside the EU though? Essentially all economists agree on that. It doesn't mean they are right, but let's go with it, as they nearly all say the impact on growth rate will be something like 0.5%. If the economy were to go forward with a weaker growth rate but still do ok - which is what most economists say - will we notice? No, of course not. We'll be better off in 5 and 10 years time. Maybe not as better off as we would have been but that would be theoretical to most people. After all, if Germany can tolerate weak growth for year after year, why can't we? Over time how we do on productivity is far more important than whether we are in the EU. Is a Corbyn led government, bringing back trade union powers and influence, likely to revolutionise productivity? Er, yes, but in the wrong direction!

So my healing scenario has a very reasonable chance of coming to pass.

The next biggest risk after a hung parliament is a small Johnson majority. I thought we would hear more about the December 2020 trade deal cliff edge in the campaign. Maybe it's too detailed a point and not immediate enough for the remainers to go at strongly. Instead they've just cast doubt on Johnson's ability to do deals by next December, using lies about the likely time to get a trade deal with the US for example. (The average time it takes the USA to negotiate a trade deal is 18 months. Admittedly more than 12 but not 7 years). It probably hasn't occurred to them that you can do these deals in stages. Effectively we will forever be negotiating and renegotiating trade deals. That sound awful? It's what the EU does on our behalf currently. And because they have to balance 28 countries' interests it takes longer and satisfies nobody. Of course we can do deals that, overall, are better for us and we can do it more quickly than the EU does on our behalf. Johnson probably felt he had to say that the final end wouldn't be overly delayed but I doubt he was wise to choose the December 2020 deadline. However, he got his EU deal through when almost no-one thought he would.

The real no trade deal cliff edge comes if Johnson has a small majority, putting power in the hands of his Brexit ultras. If Johnson has a good majority he can marginalise the ERG and push his deals through. This risk does concern me to the extent that I think a small Johnson majority is nearly as bad as a hung parliament.

But wouldn't a big Tory majority mean a very right wing government? I don't think so. A very wise professor in economics I worked for in the 1980s once told me that, for all the noise, the difference between the parties was usually quite small. I've looked at the numbers more closely ever since. At the time the number bandied about was the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement (PSBR, what we now call the "deficit"). In 1979 the SDP-Liberal Alliance was pushing for "pump priming" of the economy saying we could afford to borrow more to finance growth. The actual numbers were such a small proportion of total government spend that it was hard to see it having any effect. That's not the case this time on overall spending, but it's worth looking at the detail.  There was a good graphic about NHS spending on the  BBC news last night. It showed the average annual increase - and it always has been a strong increase - in NHS spend under each government since 1979. From memory the numbers were something like 3% under Thatcher and Major, 5% under Blair and Brown and around 2% after 2010 and the acute need to rein in spending. The Tories are now promising a 4% increase and the extra spending promised by Labour on top barely registered as a thin red sliver. No difference at all really.

Yes we had the media excitement over the awful photo of the boy with suspected pneumonia on the floor at Leeds hospital. The thing that surprised me most about this was that the Tories weren't ready for this year's equivalent of "Jennifer's ear", which was the 1992 election version. After all, an obvious risk of a December election is that all journalists need to do is keep an eye on every major hospital and, in all likelihood, such a case will arise. The only question was whether it was a child or an old person. While having every sympathy for the specific case, if people are saying that the NHS needs to be ready and waiting with facilities and staff for every conceivable emergency case then there's going to be a lot of expensive surplus capacity sitting around 98% of the time. We need a grown up debate about this and Corbyn promising to keep "weaponising" the NHS won't help us get there.

So the question is who will run the NHS more effectively? Labour with its power to the unions policy which will halt any kind of beneficial change in the NHS for good? (A rhetorical question. A separate blog might come on the Labour lie that the Tories would "sell" the NHS).

Johnson is a centrist, one nation Tory. He ran London well with an inclusive style and strong team. His cabinet is the most diverse ever. Yes he's a fudging dissembler but this is not a right wing Tory party. It's been incorrectly branded that on Brexit, but Brexit isn't a left-right issue. Johnson is the best leader on offer by far and the Tories have the most competent squad. They are the only party that has the first clue about business - and then, most of the time, not much more than the first clue. Even they are blind to the needs of the massive number of tiny and small business that are so important to our economy. But at least they aren't hostile to them. Why would anyone want to start a business under Corbyn? (If you aren't sure of the answer, or aren't convinced that entrepreneurs will flee the country, see what Sir Charles Dunstone, co-founder of Carphone Warehouse said a couple of days ago).

In contrast think what could go wrong. Seduced by the offer of "free" broadband? First remember the old saying about free lunches. But secondly ask yourself, why do they want to control our broadband? Because the public sector will be better at rolling out fast broadband? Pull the other one, this is the public sector that can't deliver Crossrail on time and budget and can't get HS2 properly started before the budget is not just blown but annihilated. You may think the next bit is paranoia but bear with me. All far left governments want to control the media. Labour have an "oven ready" way with the print media: the egregious Leveson controls are sitting there waiting to be implemented. The LibDems wouldn't resist it - Clegg was one of its main champions. But the internet is another thing. Control broadband and you're half way there.

This sort of Orwellian development wouldn't happen at once of course. McDonnell and co know that they just need to win battles now and then. Get state control of some of these things now and you are positioned to act later on. Especially when "emergency" circumstances require it. All those counter-terrorism controls  are there to be used. After all, local councils have used it if people use the wrong bin....

But aren't the Tories just too awful, seen as the nasty party as Theresa May said?  For the most part, no. The so-called friendlier, gentler politics of the left are of course actually bullying, harrassment and anti-semitism. They will use all of these things. Remember the Bolsheviks started as a minority government.

I have often wondered how things would have panned out in 1979 if Thatcher hadn't won and the SDP-Liberal Alliance had been in government or a coalition. I can reluctantly only conclude it almost certainly wouldn't have worked out well. A vote for the middle ground this time could also set us on the wrong track for a long, long time. Democracy Man will vote for his party, as he should but otherwise a vote for the LibDems seems a cop out to me, even if I wasn't put off by their extreme position on identity and gender. I wasn't the only one to find the news that they have accepted a £100k donation from Ferring Pharmaceuticals, a firm that sells drugs used in identity clinics to delay the onset of puberty, concerning.

I have more of a problem with people saying they can't stand Corbyn but have always voted Labour so will again. I can respect the idea of fighting from inside the tent but the battle for the heart of Labour seems lost.

But the real question is the undecideds and whether they will vote at all. (Generally they don't).

So Mikey47, I can respect that, if you think the single biggest issue facing us is climate change then, even though we are only one country and your vote won't have much if any impact, you should vote Green.

Otherwise anything other than voting Conservative risks a bad outcome: continuing argument over Brexit, the potential for the end of the union with Scotland after indyref2 and the whole Marxist nightmare slowly unfolding. And don't kid yourself, everyone knows McDonnell can't finance his plans on the back of the rich alone, if only because they'll decamp. He'll be coming after middle ground people like you, me and Democracy Man as well. He'll need to tax the many, not the few. And this from a starting point where the tax burden on the economy has just grown to the largest proportion of GDP since before Mrs Thatcher started her revolution in reducing the size of the state.

We live in a marginal so our votes do count. I'll be voting Conservative as the only viable option to anything other than a bleak, chaotic future. I don't think your constituency is a marginal, so you might as well follow your conscience. But I hope I've convinced you that a tactical vote against the Tories could be disastrous.