Why we cannot rule out a Tory comeback

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Good morning. The Budget is about setting the Conservative party up for the next election. Some thoughts on why the outcome of that election is still not a done deal in today’s note.

Shifting sands?

The battle lines have been drawn for the next election, says Robert Shrimsley:

The election, therefore, will pit a Tory government pretending it has found painless spending cuts against a Labour opposition requiring only painless tax rises to meet its rhetoric on broken public services. Both sides would probably end up raising taxes after the election.

I disagree with this only because of the word “probably”. (My bet is that a Conservative government would end up introducing another “if you close your eyes and squint, this is not a national insurance increase”, as it did earlier in this parliament with Boris Johnson’s manifesto-breaking plan for a health and social care levy, mostly made up of an increase in National Insurance payments of 1.25 per cent. Labour might judge that it can get away with letting the fuel duty escalator rise in the first year of the parliament or introduce some other new, as yet unrevealed tax.)

How much does any of this matter? Isn’t the next election pretty much settled? Well, maybe. Ipsos, the UK’s oldest pollster, turned heads when its latest poll showed the Conservatives on 20 per cent, the party’s lowest ever share since recording began in 1978. (Their previous low point came in December 1994 and May 1995.)

We should take this seriously, if only because it is a reminder that, though polls usually narrow as an election approaches, the Conservative position is as bad with a vote at absolute most 326 days away. As the actual election results are similarly saying, the Tory party is in a great deal of trouble and hasn’t yet found a way out.

But we should also take it seriously that those same polls are showing us that it is still possible, at least in theory, for the Conservative party to turn things around. Here’s the same Ipsos poll showing just how many voters are still open to changing their mind.

Why has Keir Starmer been able to take the Labour party from one of its worst-ever defeats to the brink of power? There’s a mix of factors including decisions he himself has taken, mistakes made by the Conservatives, and just events. But another part is just that British voters are more volatile than they ever have been and more willing to try a wider range of parties than before. The same thing that has given Starmer his lead can still take it away.

Now, we should be clear that this volatility has risks for the Conservative party. Its position could get worse! Added to that, Labour voters are more certain about their vote than current Conservative voters.

But voters are volatile, the election is not over: and a chancellor deciding to use nearly all his “headroom” because at the end of the day it is going to be Rachel Reeves’ problem might yet discover that it is, in fact, his problem after all. What do you think from your observations? Have voters already made up their mind? Vote by clicking here.

Now try this

I have to be honest: because it’s been quite a busy week all round in our household, I have not seen or done anything all that exciting outside of work, though it’s always a pleasure to go on TV — here’s an engagingly frank Vanity Fair piece on that topic.

Top stories today

• Infighting over windfall tax | The next UK renewable energy auction will offer a record £1bn annual subsidy, the government announced, but drew criticism from some Scottish Tories for extending the windfall tax on oil and gas producers. 

• A Man of Great Promise | The latest forecasts from the UK’s fiscal watchdog were at odds with the chancellor’s assertion that his tax-cutting Budget would secure “not just higher GDP but higher GDP per head”.

• Taxpayers pick up £15,000 bill | Taxpayers funded a £15,000 settlement in the libel case brought by a university academic falsely accused by science secretary Michelle Donelan of supporting or sympathising with Hamas, the government said yesterday.

• Another payout | A University Challenge student has accepted “substantial damages” from Baroness Jacqueline Foster, a Tory peer, who falsely accused her of being antisemitic, the BBC’s Ana Nicolaci da Costa reports.

• Delivering spending cuts a ‘fiscal fiction’ | The Resolution Foundation gives its verdict.

Below is the Financial Times’ live-updating UK poll-of-polls, which combines voting intention surveys published by major British pollsters. Visit the FT poll-tracker page to discover our methodology and explore polling data by demographic including age, gender, region and more.