May alienates her core supporters just when she needs them most

If the Conservatives are no longer the party of low tax, then what do they stand for? That should be the question running through the mind of the Prime Minister as she digests today’s ComRes poll in The Daily Telegraph carried out after Wednesday’s disastrous Budget.

The findings are a brutal assessment of Theresa May’s inexplicable decision to allow her Chancellor to rip up her party’s 2015 general election manifesto promise not to raise National Insurance.

The Tory manifesto – which both Mrs May and Philip Hammond signed up to – said: “We will not raise VAT, National Insurance Contributions (NICs) or Income Tax.”

Voters are not stupid. They know what a promise looks like. Mr Hammond’s tortuous justification that it only applied to NICs paid by those in employment and not the selfemployed never stood up to scrutiny.

And, sure enough, in the Daily Telegraph/ ComRes survey, more than half of the public – 55 per cent– thought that Mrs May should have honoured this pledge not to increase NICs.

If the decision to scrap the pledge was a calculated political gamble (because those hit hardest would always be likely to vote Tory) it appears to have failed.

One in seven Conservative voters now say they are less likely to vote to return Mrs May’s party to government at the next election as a result of the Budget.

And nearly half of the British public – 46 per cent – now say they are “less likely” to vote Conservative at the next election – compared with only 27 per cent who are “more likely”.

With one stroke of the pen Mrs May has managed to alienate the very voters she was desperate to attract when she became Tory leader.

The survey found that exactly half of voters think the Tory party is “no longer a low-tax party” while 47 per cent felt that the Budget makes them “trust the Conservative party less”.

Mrs May has had an easy ride since being appointed Prime Minister by Tory MPs last summer, largely because of the near absence of a serious opposition under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

But after the disastrous “om NIC shambles” Budget, Mrs May’s extended eight-month honeymoon as Prime Minister is officially over.

The timing could not be any worse. The Brexit process could start as early as Tuesday. Mrs May will need all the good fortune she can get just as it appears to have run out.

‘Mrs May’s eight-month honeymoon as Prime Minister is over. The timing could not be any worse’