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April 23 Brown’s future post-budget: “defeat or humiliating defeat” MSN Money's post-Budget poll shows voters were unimpressed
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.
Wiped out
“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.”
Economic populism
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?
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