Labour Maintains Economic Competence Lead Going into Budget Week
As Jeremy Hunt's Spring Budget fast approaches, Ipsos MORI's latest political monitor highlights the challenging public opinion landscape facing the Chancellor. Labour still lead the Conservative on two measures of economic competence - both as the party with the best policies to manage the economy, and as one providing a more credible alternative to the current government.
The party has a 10% lead on the first question and 6% on the second. To make matters worse for the Conservatives, 70% of the public don't think their policies will improve the economy in the long term as 71% think they've done a bad job handling the cost of living. Labour policies are also favoured over Conservative ones on taxation (34% - 21%), poverty/inequality (41% - 12%), reducing the cost of living (36% - 17%), unemployment (34% - 19%), and pensions (26% - 17%).
There is little evidence of a Rishi bounce following the Northern Ireland protocol deal - he sees net satisfaction decrease slightly on January as overall voter intention figures remain stable. Though, most fieldwork was conducted before the deal was announced, so this effect may well be yet to filter through.
Not all findings from the poll will be well received in Labour HQ. The Conservatives have made slight gains in most policy areas as Keir Starmer's net satisfaction has dropped by 9%. Ipsos' Gideon Skinner points out that Starmer's figures are now similar to those of Neil Kinnock after the same period of time...
