YouGov/Times - CON 44, LAB 25, LDEM 10, UKIP 11
YouGov's latest voting intention figures for the Times are CON 44%, LAB 25%, LDEM 10%, UKIP 11%. The nineteen point Conservative lead is the largest YouGov have given them in government, the 44% share of support the largest since the coalition's honeymoon back in 2010.
The budget seems to have got a modest thumbs up. 32% think it was fair, 24% thought it was not - a fairly so-so rating compared to past budgets (YouGov ask the same question after every budget; the only times a budget has been seen as unfair were the Omnishambles budget in 2012 and George Osborne's final budget in 2016).
On the individual measures, everything was approved of, with the most divisive policy being spending money on new free schools - 41% thought this was a good idea, 38% the wrong priority (interestingly that wasn't just a partisan answer - a third of Tory voters also thought it was the wrong priority). Increasing NI contributions for the self-employed to the same level as employees was seen as a good idea by 47%, the wrong priority by 33%.
While people did approve of the NI rise, the majority of them did think it amounted to breaking a manifesto promise. 55% think the government have broken their pledge not to increase taxes, only 16% think they've kept it. Whether that really matters or not is a different question - the public tend to think all government break at least some of their promises anyway, so this may be seen as par for the course.
It's crucial to note the timing of the poll: fieldwork was mostly conducted on Wednesday night with some during the day on Thursday. That means while it's all post-budget, it's very immediately post-budget. Most respondents will have answered the questions before the more hostile press coverage on Thursday morning, before the ongoing pressure and the government delaying the National Insurance rise. It may be that the unravelling of the budget on Thursday and Friday has lead to more negative perceptions - but we won't be able to tell until the next round of polls.
Looking through the rest of the poll, the Conservatives & Theresa May have a lead over Labour & Jeremy Corbyn on almost every economic measure YouGov asked about (36 on cutting the deficit, 32 points on managing the economy, 15 on providing jobs, 11 on keeping prices down, 11 on improving living standards, 6 on getting people on the housing ladder), the only exception was reducing the number of people in poverty, where Corbyn & Labour had a 7 point lead.
Philip Hammond meanwhile is still very much an unknown quantity with the public. 25% think he's doing a good job as Chancellor, 21% a bad job, 54% don't know. In comparison, the government as a whole are getting the benefit of the doubt on the economy - 44% think they are handling it well, 38% badly.
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