Even with the dire budget, the Tories are still up in the polls
It seems that Keir Starmer’s Labour Party can do nothing right. Because even after the Tories delivered a budget that will hit the poorest people the hardest and make us pay more tax, they’ve managed to increase their lead in not one but two opinion polls.
A budget for who?
Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s budget was delivered on Wednesday 27 October. In short, it’s likely to make the poorest people worse off. Part of this is because of the previous £20-a-week cut to Universal Credit. Sunak’s budget made some changes to social security, but for some people, this won’t make up for the cut.
Meanwhile, according to the PA news agency, analysts have said the tax burden on the country (how much we pay) will reach a level not seen since Clement Attlee’s Labour government in the 1950s. So with higher taxes and less money in people’s pockets, you’d think it would have been an opinion poll bonanza for Labour. Wrong.
A Tory bounce
As PA reported, the Tories hold a five-point lead over Labour in a new opinion poll. Starmer’s Labour slumped by two points from 37% to 35%, according to a survey by Opinium for the Observer. Meanwhile the Conservatives went from 41% to 40%.
You’d think that Labour could have capitalised on the shortcomings in the budget, as well as the recent sewage dumping scandal, to present itself as an effective alternative to the current government. Yet both Boris Johnson and Starmer’s approval ratings remain similar to two weeks ago. 32% approve of the job the prime minister is doing (no change) and 48% disapprove, down two percentage points. Meanwhile, Starmer has a 27% approval of the job he’s doing, down three percentage points, while 36% disapprove, down two percentage points. Following the budget, Sunak’s numbers saw a little bounce back, with his approval rating rising to 41% from 39%.
But Opinium wasn’t the only polling company to report a Tory lead increase. As Britain Elects tweeted, YouGov showed similar – with the Tories increasing their lead over Labour by two percentage points:
Read on...
Westminster voting intention:
CON: 39% (+2)
LAB: 33% (-)
GRN: 10% (-)
LDEM: 8% (-1)
REFUK: 3% (-1)via @YouGov, 27 – 28 Oct
Chgs. w/ 21 Oct— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) October 30, 2021
Another poll found the majority (53%) of people “approved” of the budget:
On the Budget of 2021:
Approve: 53%
Disapprove: 15%via @SavantaComRes, 27 Oct
— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) October 27, 2021
Adam Drummond, head of political polling at Opinium, told PA:
Sunak has delivered another reasonably well received Budget and his approval ratings have seen a slight boost as a consequence. The other good news for the Chancellor is that, while 46% voters think the economy is still in a bad state, this is down from 64% back in March. However, a warning sign for the government is that people are more pessimistic about both the prospects for both UK economy and their personal finances over the next 12 months.
How on earth have the Tories managed to increase their lead following a budget that raises taxes and hits the poorest the hardest? That’s the question the Labour Party needs to be asking itself right now.
Featured image and additional reporting via PA
We know everyone is suffering under the Tories - but the Canary is a vital weapon in our fight back, and we need your support
The Canary Workers’ Co-op knows life is hard. The Tories are waging a class war against us we’re all having to fight. But like trade unions and community organising, truly independent working-class media is a vital weapon in our armoury.
The Canary doesn’t have the budget of the corporate media. In fact, our income is over 1,000 times less than the Guardian’s. What we do have is a radical agenda that disrupts power and amplifies marginalised communities. But we can only do this with our readers’ support.
So please, help us continue to spread messages of resistance and hope. Even the smallest donation would mean the world to us.
-
Show Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to leave a comment.Join the conversationPlease read our comment moderation policy here.
Blue Keef’s Thatcherite Neoliberal Neo-New-Labour Party PARASITE TORIES and his Starmerstruppen promises to be tougher than the Conservative Party TORIES, who in their right mind will vote for: “Labour is the party is for working people, not people on benefits”
“Labour will be tougher than the Conservative’s on benefit claimants”
“10 year prison sentence for” benefit fraud””
” Labour for Middle Class and up NOT The UNDESERVING POOR!”
Much, Much more and worse, from Blue Keef and his Starmerstruppen!
They make the fucking Conservative Party TORY Filth the Soft Neoliberal TORY Option!
To answer your question
1. none of the few outlets I regularly visit (other than the Canary) mentioned the tax rises, probably because they were announced weeks ago and fell off the news cycle.
2. We all welcome the new investments and the rise in min wage. With just that, and I say this without irony, Sunak put himself to the left of Starmer.
There is nothing coming from the void that is Starmer either.
More likely if truth be known the UK establishment can claim the Tories are in the lead only because they’ve captured the election process.
Corbyn packed out places with huge crowds, then on the day before the election Johnson hid in a freezer? And still won? By as many as eighty-three seats but only by three thousand votes? That’s a stolen election, and what I think made the problem for them was how popular Corbyn was. Getting him to volte-face on Brexit was the poisoned chalice Starmer handed him, and he sipped from it. Anybody including The Canary has no place to call itself democratic as it wants to overturn an election result. The better and safer way was to push for a second referendum. Still undemocratic but not quite so anti-democratic.
Same with Trudeau in Canada. Who’d vote again for that POS? How many really voted for Micron? Who really voted for Biden? The election process in the west has been captured.
Most voters say they prefer politicians who are honest and open about their intentions and policies. With that in mind, I suggest that Mr Starmer resigns from the Labour party and applies to become a member of the Conservatives. After all, which of his stated intentions and policies are to the left of Tory policies? The same, of course, applies to any other Labour supporter of Mr Starmer.
Two Parties:
The UK Labour Party = Democratic Socialist = FOR The PEOPLE.
The Neo-New-Labour Party PARASITE TORIES = Reagan/Thatcherite Neoliberalism = FOR THEMSELVES and The ELITES/ESTABLISHMENT NOT FOR The PEOPLE.
Blue Keef’s stratagist Mattinson calls us the “Undeserving Poor” ! I don’t think even the repulsive Thatcher said anything as repulsive, but I bet her and Churchill’s bones rattle in their boxes at every Neo-New-Labour Party PARASITE TORIES’ assault on The PEOPLE!
If we want a party with no TORY VERMIN we will have to vote every last one out, at any cost! To vote for names sake Their Neoliberal Corporate Identity ‘Labour’, will lead to Two TORY Parties and NO VOICE OF/FOR THE PEOPLE IN COMMONS! Voting them out won’t win us the General Election but it will win the Party back to The PEOPLE, however small the PLP, everything else will be bigger than ever before Membership, CLP, Unions, etc all detorified and Candidates out fighting for The PEOPLE and ready to take their seats and the following GE. We will then be on 51 years of Thatcherite Neoliberal TORY HELL and I am sure most People will be WIDE Awake and Paying VERY CLOSE Attention, by then!
They never ask anyone like me? Who funds these polls, or who takes any notice of them anyway?
I don’t think there will ever be another election.
Just never ending chaos we have a bought and paid for corporate world government already.
Why was billy boy gates visiting our prime minister? Which country elected him?
Yep! Look at Blue Keef and his Starmersstruppen at Thatcher’s Neo-New-Labour Parasite TORY Party, no matter what they/he does, he will be in the flat of Nr10 come next GE. We can vote however we want to, the ‘Unilateral’ Commission Decided and that’s that!
They just need the most competent hand-puppet and mouthpiece. A bit like the so called “Journalists” who are nothing but inbox ping serfs, no thinking, copy and paste done! Look at all the MSM who are suddenly conserned over Free Speech, but Silence for the sneaky illegal arrested that Blue Keef and Co Loopholed the shit out of to enable it, the silence all the while Julian was in Solitary Isolation getting extremely ill, where were they then!? Attacking the actual real Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn, while the Inbred Buffoon BoJoke dodges interviews, debates and the Public!
Insanity has the world in its grip, making the many believe that they are the weak!