As a general election approaches, with the defeat of the current government looking inevitable, the consequent impact, if any, on financial markets is highly topical. The natural assumption is that a leftist or centre-left government would be worse for investors than a right-of-centre one.
Yet history does not support this conclusion. After Margaret Thatcher’s election win in 1979, stocks fell for the rest of the year. It rallied sharply after John Major’s surprise win in May 1992 but soon fell back again as Britain struggled with the recession caused
