Patience Wheatcroft: A pro-business PM must now bring doubters on side

Those running companies, though, must understand that what David Cameron is trying to do is sway the voters who believe that “business” is against them.

He ought to be able to assume that his core arguments, that the Conservatives have demonstrated they can take the economy on the right course and Labour would bring economic incompetence and chaos, will ensure the support of business people no matter what fripperies are attached.

But the crucial task is to bring onside the voters who see the Tories as the party of the rich and supporters of big business in its efforts to fleece the public.

Labour has made headway pedalling this caricature. Its promise to do away with non-dom status played well with voters even if it would risk severe dents to the Exchequer’s revenue.

It was significant enough to prompt the Conservatives to respond quickly with the idea of stopping non-dom status being inheritable.

The bigger issue, though, is a widespread view that big business is working against the interests of the average citizen. The banks are already blamed for causing the financial crisis and none of the parties is promising to do anything other than crack down harder on them.

The anti-business feeling, however, goes beyond the banks, and Labour has tapped into it with its promise to turn zero-hours contracts into regular ones after three months.

No matter that many of the people on such deals enjoy the flexibility, the arrangements do carry the whiff of the bullying mill-owner about them.

When the gap between the pay of people at the bottom of companies and those at the top has become so wide, is it any wonder that those on the Left see it as a vote winner to promise that workers will be represented on remuneration committees?

(The Lib-Dems make this promise too. But they have also promised to slash the threshold on capital gains tax and scale back entrepreneurs’ tax relief, so they don’t merit more space in this article!)

But the regular trumpeting of annual salaries that are so far ahead of what an average worker could expect to earn in a lifetime is bound to cause disaffection.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK are not being paid the living wage. Telling them that, after all the austerity, living standards are rising is not going to make them feel that they have anything to gain by voting for those who have been in charge for the last five years.

Michael Gove, the Conservative chief whip, said last month that his party had to demonstrate that they were “the warriors for the dispossessed”. Perhaps he realised that the original plan for the Tory campaign, concentrating on stressing its economic competence and Miliband’s weaknesses, was just too narrow.

The dispossessed, however, may not vote. The middle classes, with their comfortable homes and civil education, embrace the ballot box and the Tory promises on inheritance tax will undoubtedly appeal to them.

Being able to pass on £1 million of assets without death duties is an attractive proposition for many UK voters who want to look after their families and a good way of keeping them on side, even if the cost is clobbering the tax benefits of pensions for the relatively well paid.

But Cameron knows that he also has to appeal to those who don’t have millions to pass on to their children. It is a difficult tightrope to tread.