Business takes on the Tories

The Camerons are coming - hurray! hurray! The Camerons are coming . . . OK, the cheering is strictly optional - but it seems that all over town businesses are hiring Tories. Public relations companies are to the fore but all sorts of commercial organisations and non-profit-making outfits are sniffing the wind and looking for true blues.

"There's been a distinct shift," says Will Dawkins of headhunters Odgers, Ray & Berndtson. "It's right and sensible for businesses to be thinking about the next government and how it will affect them. Businesses think on a three- to five-year horizon and they want people with some sympathy, knowledge and understanding of the Conservatives."

I understand that there is also an increasingly brisk business the other way - Labour politicians and advisers looking for safe berths outside government. (Brown rats leaving the sinking ship? Recycling backbench retreads is, I am told, far from easy.) History suggests that those on the move are wise. The changeover first became apparent about two months ago - when Tory Boris Johnson ousted Labour's Ken Livingstone to become mayor of London. London is a good political barometer. Back in 1964 Labour won the old Greater London Council - and went on to win the general election. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s the pattern was repeated: whichever party won the GLC also won the following general election. The only exception - and it proves the rule - came with Margaret Thatcher. In 1981 Labour just won the GLC. A desperately unpopular Mrs T might well have lost the 1983 election had it not been for her leadership in the Falklands war. Back in Downing Street, she had her revenge and abolished Livingstone's GLC.

sue.cameron@ft.com