Yesterday’s Budget won’t save the Labour government at the next general election, political analysts say. Pollsters on both sides of the aisle gave dire predictions, ranging from manageable defeat to humiliating defeat, for the party after yesterday’s bad-news Budget. If Labour can’t convince voters it has a grip on the recession in the coming months, the analysts say, it risks being “completely wiped out” at the polls.

 

Andrew Cooper, founder and strategic director of polling firm Populus, is a leading interpreter of political opinion. I asked him whether Chancellor Alistair Darling’s plans could help the government survive. “The short answer is no,” he said. “Voters are profoundly sceptical and won’t be swayed by what he has said. They’ll want to wait and see what happens.”

 

‘They give one and take two’ is a phrase he frequently hears in focus groups. “Although it sounds as though people are going to be better off, they actually end up worse off.” To make matters worse, this year’s Budget was delivered during a global recession and it is that recession, Andrew says, that will decide the government’s fate.

 

 

 

“In the weeks and months to come, the concern will be does it feel like the chancellor’s announcements are working?” he told me. “If yes, Labour may experience a manageable defeat. If not, they could be completely wiped out.

 

“For example, there was a blip bump for Labour immediately after the collapse of the Lehmann Brothers last autumn. The government sensed terrible things were happening all over the world and seemed to have a plan. By December, the polls suggested a general election would have produced a hung parliament and Labour would have had the biggest majority.

 

“Now, the polls indicate Labour would only have a majority of 40 to 50, when what they need is a converted majority of 50 to 100 or more. If they can’t persuade voters they’ve got a grip, they risk being wiped out completely.”

 

 

 

The Budget did, however, offer clues to Labour’s general election strategy. Increasing taxes on high earners is an attempt to define Labour as the party of the masses, rather than the privileged few – a philosophy put forward by legendary pollster Stan Greenberg after he joined Labour’s ranks in 1995 (Tony Blair wasn’t convinced by the political power of economic populism at the time; Gordon Brown was).  

 

Will voters buy it? Elizabeth Truss, deputy director of right-of-centre think tank Reform, doesn’t think so. “(Labour) have failed to address voters’ concerns about the high level of debt and public spending,” she told me. “Many voters are having to cut back on their own household budgets. They want to see the public sector do the same.”

 

Darling must change direction in November’s Pre-Budget Report if the government is to avoid a debilitating defeat, she said. “He needs to address the deficit and reduce spending in the key departments. How well Labour does in the next general election depends on whether the government continues on this course of overspending or decides to make the difficult decision and rein it in.”

 

 

What did you think of the Budget? Did it win your vote, or will you be backing someone else at the general election?

 

 

 

       

 

 

An investigation into the death of a man at last week’s G20 protests has been launched by the City of London police, whose own officers were involved. Video footage published in today’s Guardian shows 47-year-old Ian Tomlinson being pushed to the ground from behind by a police officer moments before suffering a fatal heart attack. Tomlinson, a newspaper seller, was on his way home from work and had not been involved in the protests.

 

 

In an official statement on the night of Tomlinson’s death, the Metropolitan police made no reference to any contact with officers. Today, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson said: “The images that have now been released raise obvious concerns and it is absolutely right and proper that there is a full investigation into this matter, which the Met will fully support.” The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), which examines serious incidents and allegations of misconduct, is overseeing the investigation, but has not yet launched its own inquiry.

 

Police investigations into fatal incidents came under scrutiny after the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, shot by officers in 2005. An IPCC inquiry revealed serious failings in the Met’s handling of critical information. Did the police learn anything from de Menezes? No, says Guardian columnist Duncan Campbell, who suggests their tactics for dealing with demonstrations are "dangerously wrong." Lawyers are now calling for a criminal investigation into Tomlinson’s death. “If there are allegations that the death was caused or contributed to by unlawful actions of the police, then a police investigation would not be satisfactory,” Harriet Wistrich of Birnberg Peirce, the solicitors who represented the family of de Menezes, told The Guardian. “The IPCC should clearly run its own independent investigation which could lead to a referral of the case to the Crown Prosecution Service to decide whether to bring a criminal prosecution against the officers. If there is evidence of an assault, even if there is evidence to suggest there was a lawful defence to the assault, then it has got to be referred to the CPS.”

 

Your thoughts?