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About ten years ago now, I was going out with a girl who worked as an account manager for one of the larger advertising agencies. Despite nice job with plenty of perks, something she used to do was claim to be working class; as you can imagine, this would wind me up something rotten. With the possible exception of PR, I would say, there is no more middle class profession than advertising. However, this didn't win her round because her grandad had been a miner and so she felt justified in 'remembering where she came from'.
As I was galumphing painfully round the track in Battersea Park last night (no fun at all - you try running 5K with a nasty head cold), it struck me that it was recognising that self-classification which was one of Tony Blair's best ever political insights. I may be no fan of Blair, but I do recognise him as one of the sharpest operators we've seen in a good long while and at some point he must have had an insight into the nature of who 'the workers' really are.
Traditionally, the view of 'the workers' has been one of horny-handed sons of toil, digging things up or making things. However, it struck me just how much that has changed - a better, modern definition of 'the workers' would now be 'those people who provide goods and services on a taxable wage in a competitive environment'. And that was Tony's stroke of genius; recognising that the people he needed to win over were the middle classes, and that the way to do that was to convince them that Labour were 'a safe pair of hands' with the economy.
It was odd, therefore, to watch the pre-budget report yesterday as Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling undid Tony's vision and in so doing guaranteed losing the next election. I hadn't been certain before that they were going down in flames, but now I am, as the middle classes - which is most people in employment, these days - aren't going to take kindly to the plans outlined. It's them who pay the taxes to fund the government as the rich don't pay tax unless they really feel like it (as my accountant says: if you're earning over £100,000 a year, paying tax over 20% on that is largely voluntary) and so gestures like raising tax on incomes over £150,000 are a sop to the press rather than a meaningful income generator. Corporation taxes, once again, are just a way of taking money from the consumer (studies show that the people who pay cororation tax are ultimately employees, in the form of lower wages, customers, as higher prices, and shareholders, as lower dividends) and the largest consumer group in the country are...the middle class so well wooed by Tony, who are now going to see higher (unavoidable) tax rates, higher prices, and an even lower return on their pension funds.
A few months ago,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
whiskeylover and silver_blue, amongst others, were kind enough to take a wager with me on the outcome of the US presidential elections (they bet on McCain); I was wondering if anyone would care to make a bet on the outcome of the next UK general elections? We're two years away yet, but I reckon it's a done deal. Anyone want to take an outside punt on Labour?
As I was galumphing painfully round the track in Battersea Park last night (no fun at all - you try running 5K with a nasty head cold), it struck me that it was recognising that self-classification which was one of Tony Blair's best ever political insights. I may be no fan of Blair, but I do recognise him as one of the sharpest operators we've seen in a good long while and at some point he must have had an insight into the nature of who 'the workers' really are.
Traditionally, the view of 'the workers' has been one of horny-handed sons of toil, digging things up or making things. However, it struck me just how much that has changed - a better, modern definition of 'the workers' would now be 'those people who provide goods and services on a taxable wage in a competitive environment'. And that was Tony's stroke of genius; recognising that the people he needed to win over were the middle classes, and that the way to do that was to convince them that Labour were 'a safe pair of hands' with the economy.
It was odd, therefore, to watch the pre-budget report yesterday as Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling undid Tony's vision and in so doing guaranteed losing the next election. I hadn't been certain before that they were going down in flames, but now I am, as the middle classes - which is most people in employment, these days - aren't going to take kindly to the plans outlined. It's them who pay the taxes to fund the government as the rich don't pay tax unless they really feel like it (as my accountant says: if you're earning over £100,000 a year, paying tax over 20% on that is largely voluntary) and so gestures like raising tax on incomes over £150,000 are a sop to the press rather than a meaningful income generator. Corporation taxes, once again, are just a way of taking money from the consumer (studies show that the people who pay cororation tax are ultimately employees, in the form of lower wages, customers, as higher prices, and shareholders, as lower dividends) and the largest consumer group in the country are...the middle class so well wooed by Tony, who are now going to see higher (unavoidable) tax rates, higher prices, and an even lower return on their pension funds.
A few months ago,
whiskeylover and silver_blue, amongst others, were kind enough to take a wager with me on the outcome of the US presidential elections (they bet on McCain); I was wondering if anyone would care to make a bet on the outcome of the next UK general elections? We're two years away yet, but I reckon it's a done deal. Anyone want to take an outside punt on Labour?
