François Hollande's France is a preview of Ed Miliband's Britain. And it's terrifying

François Hollande and Ed Miliband could be political blood brothers. Neither has held down a job outside politics for any serious length of time. Both have been political bag carriers, graduating to apparatchiks. Both have tried to compensate for their essential blandness by adopting radical left-wing policies. Both now pose as socialists, and tout genuinely big (if dangerous) ideas about capital, labour and society. The biggest difference between them is that Hollande won an election, and has been able to put his politics into practice.

So we can look to France to see the kind of future which may await Britain if, as the pollsters and bookmakers believe, Miliband is just over a year away from 10 Downing Street. It is frightening. Hollande’s presidency has been an unalloyed disaster; French unemployment is now over 10 per cent; among the young it is 24 per cent. His war on wealth creators has led to a collapse of foreign investment into the country — it has more than halved in the two years since he came into office. In the same period, it has trebled in Germany. While most countries in the eurozone think the worst is behind them, France fears that the worst is yet to come.

Hollande cannot be faulted for being serious about doctrine. He wanted to impose a 75 per cent rate of tax on the richest, and when the courts struck that down he imposed it on the employers instead. Rather than leading to a flood of revenue, it has put up a ‘keep out’ sign above France for anyone serious about starting a business. Success is penalised. Miliband’s proposed 52 per cent tax would do precisely the same.