Theresa May and the Conservatives represent the only realistic means of sane government

GE2017

We speak to Pimlico Plumbers and ask them for their view, as a business on who to vote for and why.

There is no doubt in my mind that for businesses like mine – and anyone who understands where the money comes from to run a country – that Theresa May and the Conservatives represent the only realistic means of sane government.

Higher taxes and fantastical promises of more money for practically everything – police, health, education, just do not add up.  You don’t need to take a calculator to Labour’s so-called ‘costed policies’ to reach this conclusion, because it’s not the maths that’s at fault.  The fundamental problem with everything that Jeremy Corbyn is offering is that it’s based on the fiction that you can squeeze more and more out of businesses and higher earners, and they can and will keep coughing up an endless stream of cash.

This just isn’t the case and its ignorance of basic economics makes, Ed Miliband, look like a candidate for entrepreneur of the year, by comparison.  The simple fact is that if you drastically alter the commercial operating environment companies will be less profitable, and there will be less tax to collect, and ultimately fewer successful businesses to provide people with jobs in the future.

Instead of generating more money to fund public services what will happen after year one is that the base will inevitably shrink, with the obvious effect of reducing, not increasing, tax take for the Treasury.  What’s needed is more of what has worked since 2010, and that’s a tax regime that incentivises businesses to expand, hire and train more workers. The numbers, the real ones, not Labour’s cod economics, provide 32 million reasons (people in work), why this is a winning strategy.

There is a structural low-wage problem inside the economic recovery, which places an unnecessary burden on the state to support those in work, but who are unable to meet their full living costs. But having buoyant economy that is producing jobs is a much better staging point from which to solve this issue, than one that is stagnant or shrinking, under the burden of a penal tax regime.

The current government, who if sanity prevails, will after tomorrow, take control of the country until 2022, are taking the low wage phenomenon very seriously, and have put Tony Blair’s former policy advisor, Matthew Taylor, in charge of unpicking the problem. He’s due to report his findings very soon.  I for one am eagerly looking forward to reading what Matthew has to say, and I don’t think he’s going to recommend bashing the goose that lays the golden eggs with increased taxes to boost wages.        

My fear is that as the opinion polls tighten in the final days before tomorrow’s election, that people will be sucked in by Labour’s line in undeliverable promises.  And if that sentiment filters through to the ballot box it would be catastrophic for the economy.

Personally, I think that Theresa May and the Conservatives will take the election with an increased majority of 30-50 seats, which should give us the sound government we need to get us through some difficult times ahead, even if there isn’t the ‘97’ style massive majority initially hoped for.

These are my honest thoughts and fears, along with the wish not to need to vote on any more national issues for five years.