It wasn’t so long ago that the Conservatives won a landslide on Boris Johnson’s pledge not to put up income tax, national insurance or VAT. But four years on, and after 13 years in office, it seems the Tories have lost their hard-won reputation for low taxes. Mr S has done some polling and last week’s Budget only served to harden the increasingly common view of the Tories as a party of high taxers.
A whopping 50 per cent of voters now associate the Tories with raising taxes, up from 42 per cent who thought so a week prior to the Budget. More than a third of voters – 38 per cent – associate ‘advocating for lower taxes’ with the Labour party (shock!) while just a fifth – 20 per cent – associate it with the Conservative party. Just 12 per cent of 1,500 voters think that their individual taxes will decrease following the Budget, compared to twice that (23 per cent) who expect them to increase. Polling of 1,500 adults was conducted two days after the Budget by Redfield and Wilton.
Still, there is some good news for Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt: ‘just’ 67 per cent now describe the state of the British economy as ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’, down two months ago from the 74 per cent who said the same on 11 January. And while 51 per cent say the UK economy will worsen this year – compared to a mere 16 per cent who forecast an improvement – there is an uptick in Hunt’s own ratings. On 9 March, voters narrowly plumped for Rachel Reeves over Hunt as the best Chancellor by 30 per cent to 28 per cent; a week on and that had flipped with 30 per cent now favouring Hunt compared 25 per cent who chose Reeves.
Things can only get better, eh boys?
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