As this recession drags on, I suspect that three groups—apart from the finance figures who behaved so recklessly—will bear the brunt of public anger: corporations and individuals who avoid tax, those who abuse the welfare state and those public servants who take advantage of their position to unfairly enrich themselves and their families. The politician who can learn how to harness this anger would show the electorate that they are on the voters’ side.
The way to make this message cut through would be to go against type. So, for example, Cameron should emphasise that he’ll clamp down on tax avoidance rather than majoring on welfare abuse. (Naturally, Labour should do this the other way around) The obvious, and probably insurmountable, difficulty with this approach is that the tax status of at least one key Tory figure is uncertain. Just to compound the problem, the press would have a field day going through the list of Tory donors to find those who didn’t match up to the new policy.
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