Finally, the self-employed will demand more concessions. So long as they were a fairly marginal group, everyone could safely ignore them. The Tories more or less took them for granted, while Labour dismissed them as tax dodgers. And yet, there are plenty of policies that would be very popular. Tax simplification is one obvious example. Most self-employed have to handle their own tax affairs, or pay an accountant to do it for them, so every fiddly change in the system costs them either time or money, and often both. The welfare system takes very little account of their needs and women don’t get much of a hearing. For example, while maternity leave has been extended to employees there is not much on offer to the self-employed – even though the flexibility of working for yourself appeals to a lot of mothers. Any of those policies would win a lot of support – and it can’t be long before an enterprising politician starts pitching for that vote.