The Budget flops

Since the Budget and the Conservative Party Spring Forum the Tory lead has grown by 2% according to YouGov.  The Telegraph didn't even mention the LibDems - who are down again to just 15%.

46% of those surveyed for The Daily Telegraph agreed that the Budget was not fair.  Only 34% thought that it was fair.  18% thought that they and their families would be better off as a result of Gordon Brown's measures.  48% thought that they would be worse off.

Respondents were equally divided when asked: "Which would you trust more to take the right decisions about taxes and public spending?"  28% chose a Brown-led Labour Government and 28% chose a Cameron-led Conservative Government.

Comments

[Tory T]

The public can see through what the TPA apparently can't.

Any chance of them recanting their cheering for this con of a Budget?

If the Gordon's revolting habit video (see thread below) gets any tabloid traction, I really can see a challenger rising in the Labour ranks.

He must have serious judgement/character issues to do that on the front bench on Budget day.

YouGov is also the pollster that has outlier figures for "others" not reflected in other polls. Do we have figures for them for ukip? Iain Dale reports a full 1/3 of ukip MEPs support the MEP Tom Wise, he exposed as having allegedly bought a new car with taxpayer cash, and are to leave the party. I can't see them polling 5%.

[kingbongo]

You can trust the electorate - it should be part of our core that we trust them to understand what we are doing. It is Brown's innate hatred of others that has been seen and his intellectual arrogance has tripped him up.

We must make our case for sharing the proceeds of growth and make it well - tax reduction can be popular if we show it is affordable. We should be honest with the voters and they will respond.

I won't be making any more donations to the TPA - their shallow analysis of the budget was dreadful.

[Tapestry]

YouGov provides yet more evidence that 'others' have grown. At 15% now.

Other pollsters give 17%. The growth rate should worry Conservatives.

Green will be part of the story, but so too UKIP and BNP.

[Andrew Woodman]

We must remember, it's not just us who loses votes to the others. Labour must be losing lots of support to the BNP. It's a worrying trend in politics in general, but I don't think it's just us who need to beat ourselves up over it.

[Graham Clark]

Mr Editor - Could a time-series of the ConservativeHome Poll of polls be plotted on a chart, with the dates of key events such as Mr Cameron's election as Leader of the Conservative Party highlighted? Thanks if this can be done.

[Edward]

And much more significantly the SNP and Plaid Cymru, Tapestry.

[Editor]

No, Graham (09:52) but I'll work on something this weekend. All the Budget busyness has knocked me off course and I haven't published all of the March survey data that I had intended to.

[Peter Hatchet]

I want to believe our polling figures - really I do! - but it all seems too good to be true?

I'm a big supporter of Cameron, and I think his strategy has yielded much success for our party so far, but I'm hesitant for 2 reasons - although both anecdoteal!

(1) I'm still not hearing many people (at all) talking really positively about the Conservatives. Yes, they've lost much hostility, but that is it. Where is the "enthusiasm"?

(2) I hear many, many people talk about how Cameron has no policies, doesn't stand for anything and is an imitation of Blair. And I *mean* a large majority. And 'they' say Brown has been very good with the economy and a good chancellor. I don't think this is fair, but if it's the perception out there, why is he rated so far ahead of Brown?

As a result, I find it hard to believe we are doing this well. And I worry that this could lead evaporate at any moment, because no-one seems genuinely enthused yet?

I hope I'm wrong. Presumably Cameron is aware of this and will work to make himself more "gritty" and develop his message this year.

Once I start hearing people sounding genuinely enthusisatic about the prospect of a Conservative government, *then* I'll relax. Not before!

[Editor]

Peter makes a good point about enthusiasm. I thought the same at Nottingham. Lots of warmth to Cameron personally. Much more optimism about the party's prospects but very little enthusiasm. Perhaps it's just a question of time and the reporting of the policy groups will give all of us more tangible things to hold on to.

['Disgusting' DVA]

Mike Smithson is reporting the Liberal Democrats on 16%, according to the full YouGov data.

[David Belchamber]

Editor @10.20:
"Perhaps it's just a question of time and the reporting of the policy groups will give all of us more tangible things to hold on to".
I am sure you are absolutely correct, Tim.
I think we should take every opportunity to remind people that there is a lot of work going on in the background on drafting specific policies and also to contrast that with the knee-jerk reactions from Blair every time there is a problem. That it not the way to make policy.
However, having said that, I very much hope that the tory policies will be properly thought through and properly costed.

[Editor]

Why do you now call yourself Disgusting DVA?

[Scotty]

"As a result, I find it hard to believe we are doing this well. And I worry that this could lead evaporate at any moment, because no-one seems genuinely enthused yet?"
Peter, I am not surprised that we are doing well in the polls even though we have not unveiled solid policies yet. You are right to point out that people are not genuinely enthused by the Conservatives yet, and with today's cynical electorate that job becomes harder every year.
What I think has happened is that the Cameron strategy of focusing on issues such as "sharing the proceeds of growth", families, climate change and the NHS etc has resonated with the voters as the wheels come of new labour project with sleaze, spin and general incompetence. In effect we are seeing the decontamination of the Conservative party completed, but now we must move on and prove that we would be a positive change of government.

[Tory T]

I can only tell you, Ed, that many of the most enthusiastic Cameroons like myself were in our constituencies choosing to canvass and work for May instead.

The polls don't lie. This is one of the recent worst for us with a whopping 2 point spread since last month. Just wait til May. In our marginal seat the enthusiasm is electric. We can't wait to join battle and all we hear from across the council chamber is how utterly demoralised Labour are.

[Tory T]

That was muddy - I meant that recently YouGov have shown worse figures for us than others, probably b/c they overstate the fringe party votes. But now even they show a big and growing lead.

[Yet Another Anon]

Budgets usually take time to show their impact on public perception - the VAT increase in 1991 for example went largely unnoticed - I noticed it but MP's including the opposition frontbenches didn't even seem to mention it and yet after the 1992 General Election it became much more of an issue.

Mid Term opinion polls especially in a third successive term of a government are normally about as meaningful as tea leaves, but even supposing it is assumed that the figures are broadly correct the actual changes shown are well within even the wildly optimistic margins of error that the pollsters set.

['Disgusting' DVA]

"Why do you now call yourself Disgusting DVA?"

It's how another contributor referred to me last week and it amused me so much that I decided to add it to my name.

It has nothing to do with nose-picking!

[Editor]

It's horrible DVA. Please go back to Daniel Vince-Archer! Please.

[Yet Another Anon]

I doubt the true impact of the budget both politically and economically will really be known until at least next year because a lot of the changes aren't due to come in until next year. In April 2008 people who thought they were better off will find they were worse off and people who thought they were worse off will find they are better off.

[Peter Hatchet]

10:20 Editor

Absolutely. But I think a clear "vision" is just as important, if not more so, than the policy which supports it.

Scotty 10:36

"In effect we are seeing the decontamination of the Conservative party completed, but now we must move on and prove that we would be a positive change of government"

Completely agree. Spot on!

"Peter, I am not surprised that we are doing well in the polls"

This is where I'm surprised! I just find it incredible we *can* be doing so well, just because of decontaminating our "brand".

Like I said, I hope I'm wrong with my cynicism, but I don't quite believe it yet.

Ask me again in June, with excellent local election results and continued high polling and I might start to!

[Daniel VA]

Ok YouGov has published the results of the poll on its website and also shows the Liberal Democrats on 16%.

Interestingly, 'others' are listed at 14% but a comment on PoliticalBetting alleges that UKIP sites are actively encouraging party supporters to join the YouGov panel and skew the results.

[Editor]

Thanks Daniel VA, :-)

[Sean Fear]

Anthony Wells has commented that widespread infiltration by UKIP supporters, as well as being extremely diffciult to organise (you'd need about 7,000 people), would stand out like a sore thumb.

Support for minor parties is very hard to measure using standard polling techniques, but there's nothing inherently implausible about 3-4% of the population feeling so strongly about the EU that they'd vote for UKIP.

[Ted]

DVA - good to see you back posting with your newly decontaminated brand.

Peter, understand your suprise but what Cameron achieved was not just "decontamination" but immediate change from the perception in the media that "Tories couldn't win" towards "they might". His actions since then have re-inforced this, even surviving onslaughts like last Nov/Dec when BBC, Guardian etc used a couple of lowish polls to try to sell the "stalled""ineffective" tags around him.

Like the Editor my choice in the ballot would have been Liam Fox. His messages chime more with my preferences but I've been pleasantly surprised by Cameron. I think he's given sufficient comfort that he is a euro-realist, that he supports families, that we will see (perhaps slowly) tax reductions. Politics is the art of the possible as well as a philosophy of governance. Cameron has shown that he is a Tory, but also a more sure-footed recognition of how the public mood has changed in the 15 years since the Tories last won an election and therefore understands the possible.

Like you I want to see locals, Welsh & Scots elections and possibly some by-election wins before I can accept our support is hard rather than soft.

[ThatcherBoy]

All these random pot shots about the TaxPayers' Alliance are completely blinkered.

They clearly recognise the strategic importance of this Budget beyond the raw numbers (and I don't think I've read anything by TPA spokesmen saying they were applauding a cut in the tax burden - they know full well it wasn't that).

Polly Toynbee's article this morning is interesting. Being an ideologue herself, she too seems to understand the new political landscape - Tory T and other ConHome posters don't.

As she says - "An income tax cut can never be restored, although it is the fairest and least unpopular tax."

A cut in the basic rate may not leave the poorest better off in cash terms now, and it may not benefit middle-income earners by much (although this is settled I think - people earning £20k-£40k are better off), BUT, who in future is ever going to be able to raise the basic rate of income tax again?

Mrs Thatcher abolished allowances and cut rates. Brown has just done the same and left the pro-tax cut cause better off.
Lower rates on a bigger tax base are more efficient, but they are also the most politically beneficial for supply-side tax cutters because they are almost impossible to reverse. Who would win votes now by promising to raise the higher rate, even if the sums were "revenue neutral"? Even the Lib Dems know they can't get away with this.

It isn't so much that tax cuts per se have be decontaminated - this is CCO spin to try and make out Osborne's tax strategy wasn't completely shot to pieces on Wednesday. Rather, the Budget now means that we have (i) a simpler and flatter income tax system - two rates, two bands AND (ii) we have a new, lower basic rate which no party will ever again be able to raise.

That looks like a strategic victory for taxcutters to me...

[Yet Another Anon]

Like you I want to see locals, Welsh & Scots elections and possibly some by-election wins before I can accept our support is hard rather than soft.
The elections this year are still mid-term ones though and Labour since 1999 has been doing very badly in Local and European Elections but retaining power in the General Elections. Labour's vote in the 2004 EU elections of 22% was followed the following year by 35.2% on a much better turnout in the General Election. Local Elections are not seen by most people as being worth turning out for, in recent years they seem mostly to have been being used by people turning out to protest.

[Chris]

I think I might be right in saying that this is the first time all of the main pollsters have been projecting a Tory majority according to Baxter's seat calculator?

[Ted]

Thatcherboy - but it's not income tax Brown has used to raise taxes. We now have an effective standard rate of tax at 31% with income tax & NI together. The higher rate is 41%. (almost a flat tax?) As long as TPA & others think tax is only income tax then stealth taxes will continue to rise.

Will you all applaud when Gordon "cuts" rate to 20% by upping NI surcharge by 2% on higher rate taxpayers? Or he puts up VAT on zero rated items?

NI has advantage to Gordon of Employers contribution as well - a real stealth income tax.

[Yet Another Anon]

Or he puts up VAT on zero rated items?
Gradually government since 1979 has been moving towards having VAT at some rate or other on almost everything, spreading what VAT is charged on could help reduce the Standard Rate. VAT is fairer than Income Tax because it falls evenly on people in and out of work, many benefits are not taxed, also many people end up overpaying Income Tax - most people can't afford to pay accountants, VAT is handled by businesses overwhelmingly so avoiding complicating the life of most people, with fewer seperate people to deal with it should be a simpler tax to collect as well.

[Richard Woolley]

It's easy for Polly Toynbee to argue the case for high taxes because she can afford to pay them. Most ordinary people can't. I can't see the logic in Brown's tax credits. Taxing people and then giving them back through an expensive bureacracy seems perverse to me. Why not just take workers out of tax in the first place rather than redistribute wealth?. I'm attracted by the idea of scrapping tax credits, doubling income tax allowances and having a flat rate tax of 20p in the pound. It would be an election winner.
I don't think Brown's cut of 2 pence in the pound will make much difference to people's pockets because there are still rising council tax bills to consider which are hitting most people hard, particularly pensioners. All this as a result of Brown's wasteful, profligate spending. If since 1997 public spending had been controlled properly and risen in line with inflation we'd probably have 80 billion pounds to spare right now and more efficient public services.
On those poll ratings, Cameron would have an overall majority of 30 with the poor Lib Dems (pathetic, sanctimonious brigade) on just 8 seats. I suspect that when the Tories do get into office there will be more substantial tax cuts than they dare admit now. I think both Cameron and Osbourne, particularly the latter are tax-cutters at heart. So am I in the Thatcherite/Reaganite supply-side sense of the term. Taxation is confiscation, theft because it deprives people of what they rightly own.

[Chris]

Richard I fully agree with you, the tax free allowance has to be raised so as to provide a proper incentive to earn. We're spending more on social security, than the treasury is getting from income tax! The easiest way to cut taxes is to get more people into work, because they you will receive taxes from them, in addition to no longer having to pay them benefits.

[Richard]

Murdoch's plan seems to have crashed and burned then.

[Ted]

Richard
Flat tax more likely to be 35% than 20% - unless we increased indirect taxation/council tax/business rates etc to balance. We have as I pointed out above de facto flattish taxes (31% & 41%). What's wrong is that tax thresholds are too low so we are taking low paid workers cash in tax then returning it in benefit. Don't take it away in the first place!
Then if there are good social reasons why people still need benefit find a simpler way of targeting it.

[Andrew Woodman]

I think we should look more at thresholds rather than rates now Brown has done this. This tax credit shambles needs reviewing as well. Wonder what this years overpayement loss will be. £3billion maybe!!

[Yet Another Anon]

On those poll ratings, Cameron would have an overall majority of 30 with the poor Lib Dems (pathetic, sanctimonious brigade) on just 8 seats.
The collapse in the Liberal Democrat vote will mainly be in areas where they are not holding the seat, probably be a lot of tactical voting for sitting Liberal Democrat MP's - on 15% of the vote they could easily end up holding 40 to 50 seats.

[Chris]

"The collapse in the Liberal Democrat vote will mainly be in areas where they are not holding the seat, probably be a lot of tactical voting for sitting Liberal Democrat MP's - on 15% of the vote they could easily wend up holding 40 to 50 seats."

Lib Dems are notoriously hard to unseat, but I wouldn't write off people voting Tory so as to avoid the Lib Dems propping up a failing Labour administration. More conservative activists will be out as well, if they have a feeling that they can win. I'm a member of the Southampton University CF branch, and a good few of us will be working hard to see both Southampton North & Romsey, and Eastleigh fall from Lib Dem control.

[Peter]

Commentators are all missing the point. This is a tax rise for pensioners. A tax rise in addition to the fraud surrounding the true inflation rates. Let us use the 2007-08 allowances to do the sums.
For a pensioner over 65, they would have to have an income over £20,930 including state pension to be better off.
For a pensioner over 60 - i.e. women - they would have to have an income over £18,605 to be better off.
How may retired citizens are in this category - apart form the hordes of state employees that is?
This is a preposterous piece of financial jiggery pokery - once again essentially fooling the our pathetic media and our so called conservative leaders. No wonder people don't want to vote.

[Yet Another Anon]

Lib Dems are notoriously hard to unseat, but I wouldn't write off people voting Tory so as to avoid the Lib Dems propping up a failing Labour administration.
I rather get the impression that the Liberal Democrats are only going to accept a referendum on STV and equal participation in policy making or another General Election soon after under the new system, and I rather imagine that most Labour and Conservative MP's will oppose such moves even if one or both the frontbenches decided to go for it, the Liberal Democrats are appearing pretty intransigent. The Liberal Democrats feel that for too long they have been taken for granted by governments with a small or no majority, especially Labour - in the deals between Liberal\Liberal Democrat and Labour from 1923 onwards it has always been worked in Labour's favour and to the Liberal\Liberal Democrat disadvantage.

[David Belchamber]

I agree wholeheartedly with the principle put forward by Richard @ 12.53:

"Taxing people and then giving them back through an expensive bureaucracy seems perverse to me. Why not just take workers out of tax in the first place rather than redistribute wealth?"

I have long argued going along this route; it might well have to be phased in over several years but while Brown's method is a nonsense (to "confiscate" part of a person's earnings, so that s/he is not left sufficient to subsist on and then make her/him apply for benefit to remedy the situation), Richard's idea is pure commonsense.

The solution is surely something along the lines suggested by Richard:

"I'm attracted by the idea of scrapping tax credits, doubling income tax allowances and having a flat rate tax of 20p in the pound. It would be an election winner".

[anon]

"Interestingly, 'others' are listed at 14% but a comment on PoliticalBetting alleges that UKIP sites are actively encouraging party supporters to join the YouGov panel and skew the results"
That's a crock and probably just another way CCHQ dreams up of attacking UKIP. I used to think the Tories weren't the nasty party, now I realise I was wrong. Would I vote Tory ever again? Not on your Nelly!

[Andrew]

"That's a crock and probably just another way CCHQ dreams up of attacking UKIP"

Why would they even bother? UKIP are dead - they've been polling under 1% recently. The Greens are much more of a threat.

[Dean]

Final Budget backfires for Brown as poll rating slumps

To quote Nelson (not the Admiral, but from the Simpsons) Ha Ha!

To quote Nick Robinson "Is this budget clever, or too clever by half?". We seem to be getting the answer . . .

[Tapestry]

Andrew Woodman - the growth of Conservative support and the decline in Labour's and Lib Dems shows that most of the growth of 'others' is at the expense of others.

But look at the growth rates.

Conservative support is up about 10 or optimistically 20% over 2 years. Others has gone from 9% at the GE to maybe 16% - a growth rate of over 75%.

There are two more years to go. If the same growth rates continue, i.e. Conservative support up another 10% and 'others' up another 75%, 'others' could be 28%.

[Tapestry]

Even at 16% it would be worth pollsters disecting the vote of 'others' into its components.

It will almost certainly be above 20% by the GE, and will play a big part in events. Why is this trend unspeakable in the political classes and the media?

I guess it's a bit like blogging. They can't bring themselves to mention that their total control of events is gradually being watered down. The fact that political parties can recruit the support of millions without any role by the media is clearly ananthema to them.

[Brownstone]

Oh dear. Goodbye Ming.