35 days to go - In which 100 Tory supporters come out in support of.....the Tory party!

02/04/15

Dear Claire,

2nd of April: grey and miserable I'm afraid; nothing like as nice as it was yesterday morning.

Firstly, I must credit the Vox Political blog http://voxpoliticalonline.com/ for providing some key information in this article.

 

So let's go back to yesterday morning, and 'that' letter in the Daily Telegraph from 100+ 'business leaders'. Sadly, it wasn't an April Fool's joke, it was only too real. We won't dwell on the number of signatories to that letter that work in the same sector as Samantha Cameron (luxury goods). No prizes for guessing who rang round with the rallying cry!

The letter starts by stating that the Tories have been good for business. Granted, GDP is up over the term of the Tory government, but GDP per Capita is down. As anyone mildly interested in economics will tell you, GDP per capita is a far more accurate measure of the success, or otherwise, of a country's economic performance. It reflects how GDP has enriched, or otherwise, the population.

Looking at zero-hours contracts, we find a shocking 14-fold increase over the life of the Tory government, going from 2% of new jobs to a sickening 28%. Could you live on one Claire? I couldn't, nor could Cameron.

Looking at those 'business leaders' in a little more detail, we find:
- 13 of them are donors to the Tory party
- 6 of them are advisors to the Tory party
- 3 of them are Tory peers
- 1 tax avoider and 1 insider trader

Of course Gideon's been talking it up, saying this is 'unprecedented' in modern election politics. This, as both of us know, has no foundation in truth whatsoever. I remember countless letters like this before every election, but let's not let the facts get in the way of a good sound-bite!

There is an interesting article on the Left Foot forward website which provides some fascinating detail on some of your signatories:

Prudential CEO Tidjane Thiam was paid £11.8 million in 2014, up from a mere £8.7 million in 2013. In 2010, he struggled by on just £5.3 million, so people might not find it surprising that he thinks things have got better under the Coalition

Andy Harrison, the CEO of Whitbread, which owns the Costa Coffee chain amongst other restaurant brands, was paid £6.3 million, over 400 times as much as his average employee. Again, CEO pay at Whitbread has increased from just £2.6 million in 2010

George Weston, the chief executive of Primark owners Associated British Foods got a £5 million incentive payment last year, on top of a salary of around £1 million plus various other bonuses. His total pay added up to over £7 million, roughly 500 times as much as his average employee. Primark has been criticised for its refusal to pay ordinary workers the living wage

Despite falling oil prices, BP could still afford to pay Bob Dudley around £9.4 million last year, up from about £8.8 million in 2013, though

Aidan Heavey of Tullow Oil wasn’t so lucky – his company’s plummeting share price reduced his pay to just £2.4 million, compared to £2.8 million the previous year.

In his final full year at Diageo, Paul Walsh was paid £15.6 million. Mr Walsh has previously argued that higher taxes on the rich make it harder for the UK to attract and retain top talent. Cynics might wonder if there was anyone in particular he had in mind.

These pay packages do not necessarily invalidate the opinions of the CEOs or have any bearing on whether they are right or wrong about Labour and Tory economic policies, but such vulgar sums of money do make it easier for critics to argue that the letter’s authors are a bunch of self-serving racketeers concerned only with preserving an economic system that facilitates their own enrichment, rather than public-spirited entrepreneurs who genuinely want what’s best for the country.

We'll give comedian Frankie Boyle the last word here: "I'd like to see the Tories get 100 nurses to sign a letter like this"

Conservatives or Selfservatives?

Kind regards

Polly