Labour top in the polls after Tories ramp up tax
Starmer floats a wealth tax to address crisis
LABOUR has nudged ahead of the Tories in the polls after Boris Johnson’s deeply unpopular social care plan.
Keir Starmer’s party is on 35 per cent compared to 33 per cent for the Conservatives, according to the YouGov survey.
It is the worst Tory poll result since their 2019 election landslide.
The survey was carried out on Wednesday and Thursday – hours after the Prime Minister announced his plans to clobber low-earners by hiking National Insurance from 12 per cent to 13.25 per cent.
Starmer is under pressure from Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham and the Labour left to spell out a more concrete plan for fixing social care, however.
A poll by Savanta ComRes, published on Friday and carried out in early September, however, put the Tories four points clear of Labour on 40 per cent.
Johnson claimed that the manifesto-busting £12billiona-year rise would fix the crisis in social care.
But with the cash also paying for NHS Covid backlogs, there are warnings that it won’t be enough – Johnson broke his pledge that no care resident would have to sell their home.
And the PM also broke a third pledge on Thursday, scrapping the pensions triple lock for one year to avoid a Covid statistical anomaly triggering an eight per cent rise.
Anthony Wells, political research director at YouGov, said: “We should be cautious of leaping to too many conclusions from a single poll.”
But he added: “It looks as if the Government may have sacrificed their reputation for low taxes among Tory voters without actually getting much credit for helping the NHS.”
The survey of 1657 adults put the Lib Dems on 10 per cent, the Greens on nine per cent, Reform UK on five per cent, the SNP on five per cent and Plaid Cymru on one per cent.
That is a higher level of support than usual for other parties – rather than support flooding entirely to Labour – while Tory support is the lowest in a poll since the 2019 election, Labour’s support is lower than the 41 per cent it notched up in January, the last time a YouGov poll put them ahead of the Tories.
Last night Starmer suggested he could impose a wealth tax to fix the crisis. He said: “Those that earn their income from things other than work should pay their fair share.” Pressed, he added: “People who earn their money from property, dividends, stocks, shares – capital gains tax, these should all be looked at as a fairer way of raising taxes.
Burnham – touted for a future leadership bid – wrote in the London Evening Standard: “My advice to my party would be not to leave it too long before presenting a plan. Criticism of the Tory plan alone won’t cut through unless we say what we would do.” Calling for a 10 per cent tax on inheritance – previously derided by the
Tories as a “death tax” – he added: “Just as the post-war period was defined by big, unifying Labour policies, I feel that the same could be true for the post-pandemic era.
“It takes a major crisis for people to see clearly again how blame, division and hate don’t rebuild a nation.”