According to Rick Nye, director of opinion pollsters Populus; Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher between them have managed to undermine the traditional class base of British politics. This remarkable claim is justified by the fact that voters in Britain’s wealthiest constituencies are more likely to support Labour than the Conservatives.
An analysis of Britain’s 10 richest seats in the Financial Times on March 1st, shows that half are held by Labour, and just three by the Tories. This serves to highlight Labour’s broad appeal and suggests it has overturned traditional class based political allegiances in the admiring eyes of London’s Evening Standard.
So to what do we attribute this seemingly Damascene conversion? Can be it really be, that at the beginning of the 21st century, Britain’s seriously wealthy have also become seriously philanthropic? Hardly, as many members of the super rich have seen their fortunes double or even treble since Tony Blair came to power in 1997. Among those who have prospered are the Duke of Westminster, whose fortune has leapt by 194 per cent to £5 billion, Formula One boss Bernie Eccelstone whose wealth has increased by 745 per cent and retail king Philip Green who has amassed £3.6billion.
Overall, the Office of National Statistics says the 600,000 wealthiest people doubled their wealth to £797 billion in Labour’s first six years. Most benefit from rules which exempt people who spend fewer than 90 days in the UK from paying taxes on overseas earnings. This is thought to cost the Treasury billions but strangely Gordon Brown, the ‘Old Labour’ Chancellor, has not closed the loophole.
That apart, as the fourth wealthiest economy in the world, examples of such entrepreneurship are only to be expected and in any case everyone rises on the same tide surely? Well no, quite the reverse actually. For instance, while the share of the total wealth of the nation for the super rich has grown from 20 to 23 per cent the share of the poorest 50 per cent has fallen from 10 per cent in 1986 to five per cent in 2002.
And how is this being reflected politically? Well again, while the wealthiest seats are going over to Labour, its grip on its former heartlands is loosening appreciably, with just four of the 10 poorest seats in Britain being held by Labour with Baniff and Buchan the seat with the lowest average earnings held by the Scottish National Party.
But that is hardly the whole story. In 2001 just 59% of the electorate voted. This year it could be as low as 51%. Now we are constantly informed by the media that the shortfall is down to the failure of ‘young people’ to engage with the election process. Previously it was trendy for the media concern to focus on the alienation of ethnic minorities, something ‘Operation Black Vote’ was set up to remedy.
Perhaps understandably what the political establishment and thus the media are reluctant to acknowledge is the default in turnout is primarily down to ‘traditional class based allegiance’. Looked at objectively the situation is this: approximately half the population no longer seeing their interests reflected, indeed opposed, by the policies of the Big Three parties, have simply stopped voting altogether. ‘Voter apathy’ the media still insist on calling it.
Rather wisely New Labour have stopped pretending sheer ‘contentment’ might be the real explanation. But whichever way you look at it, the latest voting intentions can hardly be said to represent the ‘undermining of the traditional class base of British politics.’ In reality with the three major parties all vying for the attentions of the wealthiest 50 per cent, and thus confidently ignoring the other half, the class base is actually being heavily reinforced.
And if the major parties are bothered by this retreat from the participation of working class people in the electoral process, they show few signs of it. Indeed what New Labour is in the business of transcending is not class politics but democracy itself, with the ‘traditional’ understanding of words like ‘mandate’, ‘majority’ being diluted in the process.
Taken as a whole what the evidence suggests is this: there is an unspoken consensus at the top which demands that the politically un-represented 50% are groomed, sleepwalked, gradually eased (or at a local level cajoled) into accepting as legitimate, a form of governance, ‘a third way’, that is based on some pre-democratic model. Fair enough. That is their pejorative. But as the saying goes, ‘on their own heads be it’.
According to Rick Nye, director of opinion pollsters Populus; Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher between them have managed to undermine the traditional class base of British politics. This remarkable claim is justified by the fact that voters in Britain’s wealthiest constituencies are more likely to support Labour than the Conservatives.
An analysis of Britain’s 10 richest seats in the Financial Times on March 1st, shows that half are held by Labour, and just three by the Tories. This serves to highlight Labour’s broad appeal and suggests it has overturned traditional class based political allegiances in the admiring eyes of London’s Evening Standard.
So to what do we attribute this seemingly Damascene conversion? Can be it really be, that at the beginning of the 21st century, Britain’s seriously wealthy have also become seriously philanthropic? Hardly, as many members of the super rich have seen their fortunes double or even treble since Tony Blair came to power in 1997. Among those who have prospered are the Duke of Westminster, whose fortune has leapt by 194 per cent to £5 billion, Formula One boss Bernie Eccelstone whose wealth has increased by 745 per cent and retail king Philip Green who has amassed £3.6billion.
Overall, the Office of National Statistics says the 600,000 wealthiest people doubled their wealth to £797 billion in Labour’s first six years. Most benefit from rules which exempt people who spend fewer than 90 days in the UK from paying taxes on overseas earnings. This is thought to cost the Treasury billions but strangely Gordon Brown, the ‘Old Labour’ Chancellor, has not closed the loophole.
That apart, as the fourth wealthiest economy in the world, examples of such entrepreneurship are only to be expected and in any case everyone rises on the same tide surely? Well no, quite the reverse actually. For instance, while the share of the total wealth of the nation for the super rich has grown from 20 to 23 per cent the share of the poorest 50 per cent has fallen from 10 per cent in 1986 to five per cent in 2002.
And how is this being reflected politically? Well again, while the wealthiest seats are going over to Labour, its grip on its former heartlands is loosening appreciably, with just four of the 10 poorest seats in Britain being held by Labour with Baniff and Buchan the seat with the lowest average earnings held by the Scottish National Party.
But that is hardly the whole story. In 2001 just 59% of the electorate voted. This year it could be as low as 51%. Now we are constantly informed by the media that the shortfall is down to the failure of ‘young people’ to engage with the election process. Previously it was trendy for the media concern to focus on the alienation of ethnic minorities, something ‘Operation Black Vote’ was set up to remedy.
Perhaps understandably what the political establishment and thus the media are reluctant to acknowledge is the default in turnout is primarily down to ‘traditional class based allegiance’. Looked at objectively the situation is this: approximately half the population no longer seeing their interests reflected, indeed opposed, by the policies of the Big Three parties, have simply stopped voting altogether. ‘Voter apathy’ the media still insist on calling it.
Rather wisely New Labour have stopped pretending sheer ‘contentment’ might be the real explanation. But whichever way you look at it, the latest voting intentions can hardly be said to represent the ‘undermining of the traditional class base of British politics.’ In reality with the three major parties all vying for the attentions of the wealthiest 50 per cent, and thus confidently ignoring the other half, the class base is actually being heavily reinforced.
And if the major parties are bothered by this retreat from the participation of working class people in the electoral process, they show few signs of it. Indeed what New Labour is in the business of transcending is not class politics but democracy itself, with the ‘traditional’ understanding of words like ‘mandate’, ‘majority’ being diluted in the process.
Taken as a whole what the evidence suggests is this: there is an unspoken consensus at the top which demands that the politically un-represented 50% are groomed, sleepwalked, gradually eased (or at a local level cajoled) into accepting as legitimate, a form of governance, ‘a third way’, that is based on some pre-democratic model. Fair enough. That is their pejorative. But as the saying goes, ‘on their own heads be it’.