General Election
According to a survey of 1,300 job seekers just before the last general election by Totaljobs.com 38% of all IT workers intended to vote for the Liberal Democrats in the General Election.
That‘s 15% above the national average.
Around 28% intended to vote Tory – 8% less than the national average.
Only 15% said that they intended voting Labour – 14% below the national average.
18% said they would vote for Other Parties – 7% more than the national average.
5% at the time were undecided.
Interesting General Election Figures
Those figures are very interesting.
With all the efforts of the PCG (now IPSE)Â last time to sell the Tories as the part of the contractor, I’m surprised the Tory votes is below the LibDem vote.
I would say that many of those LibDem votes are up for play this time.
It seems that IT Contractors are more swing voters than the electorate as a whole.
Perhaps the parties should take more interest in IT Contractors if that is the case.
Labour and IR35
Labour were unpopular last time round because they introduced IR35 and allowed lots of IT workers to be imported from overseas.
At the last election the Tories cynically conned the PCG into thinking that they were going to abolish IR35 when all they said was that they would ‘take a look at it”.
They did take a look at it and decided to Strengthen it hiring 36 extra Compliance Officers based at Edinburgh, Salford and Croydon to hunt IT Contractors down over IR35.
It must have been like taking candy off of kids as regards getting the PCG to send out a Press Release just before the last election hailing their ‘triumph’ and influence over the Tories.
One wonders if ethe Tories vote of 28% will stand up this time.
One wouldn’t expect the LibDems’ vote to stand up either.
But will it go to Labour?
IT Contractors Confused
IT Contractors must be genuinely confused.
What promises have the parties made to IT Contractors for the General Election?
Both the Tories and Labour have promised to bash Umbrella Company travel and subsistence expenses.
Swing Voters
There are several hundred thousand IT Contractors dotted throughout the land. They are genuine swing voters. The parties say that the election is down to just a few hundred voters in swing constituencies.
If they stopped bashing IT Contractors and stopped seeing them as tax avoiders and offered them something it could make all the difference to their general election chances.
IPSE (ex-PCG) should be taking this opportunity to bargain with the parties.
They made a fool of themselves last time. Now is their chance to redeem themselves.
Talk To The Parties
They should talk to the parties and then lay out what the parties are offering contractors (and how they are going to bash them).
They should not be seen as giving nods and winks to the Tories again – especially on such flimsy, easy-to-see-through, ‘promises’.
There’s always been seen as a Tory bias in the higher echelons of IPSE. According to the totaljobs poll that makes them unrepresentative of their audience.
It would be good if totaljobs did another poll this time around and the results presented to the parties. They might start to take notice of us then.
