Budget Day
Today is budget day and it is normally the excuse for lots of newspapers to commission polls, so in the next few days we can expect to get lots of data to paw over. Meanwhile, here's a pre-budget poll for accountants BDO Stoy Hayward by YouGov.
It looks as though Alistair Darling faces his first budget with something of a reputation to mend following a pretty bad start. His reputation as a politician has hitherto been as a safe pair of hands. His repuation as Chancellor
though looks poor - 31% of respondents thought that he had done a worse job than Gordon Brown so far (only 1% thought he had done better) - of course that could be a reflection of Brown's high repuation rather than Darling's low one; more crushingly 46% said they had "no confidence at all" in his ability to look after the economy in the current slowdown, with only 3% saying them had a lot of confidence. Asked to rate his first 9 months in the job out of ten his average score was 3.36.
The only positive sign for Darling is that there was no great swell of support for George Osborne and the Tories as an alternative - only 28% thought they would do a better job, 40% thought they would not.
YouGov asked what people thought Alistair Darling should do if he had no option but to raise taxes. The most popular (or least unpopular!) option was an increase in corporation tax, backed by 37%. Next least unpopular was capital gains tax, suggested by 20%, income tax 9% then inheritance tax 7%. Only 2% would like to see increased national insurance or stamp duty. The pattern is unsurprising, people would much rather businesses suffered than them themselves.
UPDATE: Just as I typed this I've been sent details of a new MORI poll. They have 28% of respondents satisifed with Alistair Darling's performance as Chancellor, but have 44% disatisfied - a net rating of minus 16.
