Labour’s popularity surges to record levels on back of suicidal mini-budget

Labour’s popularity surges giving the party a lead over the ruling Tory party f up to 33 per cent according to the latest polls.

Results from the latest YouGov Times poll on Friday, September 30 put the Labour Party 33 points ahead, the biggest lead enjoyed by the party since 1998 during the early Tony Blair years. Interestingly the poll found that 17 per cent of those who had voted for Boris Johnson said they would now vote Labour.

A Survation poll put the Labour lead at 21 points, the biggest Labour lead the pollsters have ever recorded with 49 per cent saying that would vote for Labour against 28% for the Tories. Similar results came from a Deltapoll / Mirror poll.

Worryingly for the Liberal Democrats, who seem to have been unable to get their voice heard, the YouGov / Times poll found that up to 50 per cent of those who voted for the party in 2019 said they would now vote Labour.  

It also found that 26 per cent of Tory voters did not know who to vote for causing one Tory MP to tell Sky News: “You’re bloody joking, that’s annihilation.”

A collation of the data by Election Maps UK found that if a vote were held today, the Torys would lose 304 seats leaving them with just 61 against Labours 346.

The annihilation in the polls follows a successful Labour Party conference and the announcement of what many call a “suicidal” budget by the prime minister and her chancellor.

Market turmoil and pressure from MPs have forced the pair to meet with the Office for Budget Responsibility, the UK’s financial watchdog. Typically budgets are presented along with an assessment from the watchdog, however, Truss and Kwarteng decided against asking for an assessment of their plans before announcing them.

The prime minister and the chancellor have come out to defend their plans saying that they would not change, however, that has done little to help the situation with Truss in particular being caught out in interviews. At times she has seemingly been lost for words when questioned over the impact of some of the budget.

Conservative Chair of the powerful Treasury Committee of cross-party MPs, Mel Stride has written to the Chancellor saying: “Some have formed the unfortunate impression that the government may be seeking to avoid scrutiny, possibly on account of expecting the OBR forecast to be unsupportive of the achievement of the economic outcomes the government expects from the growth plan, including 2.5 per cent trend growth in the medium term.”

The polls will remove the option of a snap election for Liz Truss, a standard method used by prime ministers to shore up their power and leadership of their party. How she will react on the news that Labour’s popularity surges to record levels remain to be seen. For now, she remains focused on defending the planned mini-budget.

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