The latest YouGov/Times voting intention poll, conducted following Kwasi Kwarteng’s ‘mini-Budget’ last Friday, have the Labour party now polling at levels not seen for over twenty years.
The figures show the Conservatives on 28% of the vote, and Labour’s on 45%
The opposition party is now 17 points ahead of the Conservatives, a level of support not seen since 2001 when Labour’s Tony Blair was prime minister..
Last week, Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng unleashed a large package of tax cuts, removed the cap on bankers’ bonuses and announced increases in borrowing in a fiscal statement which has since led to a sharp fall in the value of sterling.
Prior to last week’s ‘mini budget’, Labour was already enjoying a poll lead which had trended at 11.2% during the first three weeks of Truss’s tenure, up from the 8% lead that it had enjoyed at the end of the Johnson government.
The latest YouGov poll also indicated the unpopularity of the measures unveiled in Kwarteng’s ‘mini-budget’. The decision to scrap the 45% rate of tax for those earning more than £150,000 was opposed by 72% of voters – including 69% of those who backed the Conservatives in 2019. Just 19% of voters thought Kwarteng’s budget was “fair”.
Nonetheless a poll by by IPSOS Political Monitor earlier in September previously gave the Conservatives a 15% lead in terms of who votes most trusted on economic growth and managing inflation.
Labour go into the next election from a low base in England and with the current prospect of minimal electoral representation in Scotland. The party thus requires a 12% lead in the polls to be confident of forming a majority government.
Although the latest YouGov poll would sustain an outright Labour government, the trend polling from the previous three weeks does not yet guarantee a stand-alone Labour government . In politics.co.uk’s latest Westminster tracker, polling in the three weeks prior to Sept 27 had the party 8 seats short of an overall majority at Westminster.
On the basis of the current polling, the electoral map of Britain would be significantly redrawn. The Labour Party would gain seats in parts of the country where it has always been a distant spectator, such as both Bournemouth constituencies in Dorset, Macclesfield in Cheshire, and Bromley and Chiselhurst in south east London. Former prime minister, Boris Johnson, and former deputy prime minister, Dominic Raab, would both lose their seats in any election held on this basis.
In his keynote address at the Labour Conference later today, Starmer is expected to set out his stall for the next general election by saying his plans show that Labour is once again “the party of the centre ground”.
