Emma Levin is associate director at Savanta.
“In polling terms, elections are rarely about the campaigns, but voters’ perceptions and framing long before. Or, as a famous Aussie once said, you “can’t fatten a pig on market day”.
The reality is that most people pay little attention to politicians or policies at the best of times, with only major moments punching through.
For instance, at Savanta, we’ve been tracking news story cut through since the beginning of the campaign, and it’s often the ‘non-politics’ ones which leave the biggest impression. Many won’t even know there’s an election going on. Lucky souls.
That’s a problem for Rishi Sunak and the Conservative Party. Because pretty much without exception, every major political moment that has had any resonance with the public in recent times has been uniformly terrible for the Conservatives.
So, if you’re a long-serving incumbent government, 19-points behind Labour in the polls, with Reform UK on their highest ever vote share (as Savanta’s most recent voting intention suggests), what do you do?
You have, broadly, three choices:
- Run on your record of achievements
- Make a compelling case for your future government with some big new ideas
- Make clear risks associated with your opponents
The first option is bunk, because the public essentially believe your time in office has been terrible. Conservative Home readers may well disagree and legitimately point to a number of policy successes across education and foreign policy, for instance.
But research suggests that voters feel worse off, frustrated by the state of public services, pessimistic about the future and that your time in office has been littered with mistakes.
The second, is to a certain extent, how Sunak began this election campaign. Yes, his case was mainly compelling to older, Reform-leaning voters – but that appeared to be the defensive strategy he and his team had decided on. While it wasn’t moving the polls, it may have played a part in holding them steady, by forcing the conversation away from the Conservatives’ record.
But there are limitations to this approach. Because even if the public like your ideas, as Jeremy Corbyn found out, that doesn’t mean they’re more likely to vote for you.
Which is currently what is happening to the Conservative Party, based on our latest research for the Sunday Telegraph.
On hearing major Conservative manifesto promises, such as abolishing stamp duty for first time buyers (40 per cent net positively), promising to deliver 1.6 million new homes (33 per cent net positively) and cutting National Insurance a further 2p (25 per cent net positively), voters feel more positively towards Rishi Sunak’s party as a consequence.
So far, so good.
But then if you ask the public if they trust the Conservatives to deliver on those promises, that’s another thing entirely. In fact, our recent polling suggests the public is more likely than not to say they don’t trust the Conservatives to deliver on every one of their proposed ideas.
So that leaves option three – increasing the risks associated with Labour.
That’s harder than it used to be. But still very doable, in particular on the very real concerns that they aren’t being clear about the state of the public finances they’re about to inherit from you.
And in some ways, it appears to be working.
A majority of the public believe a future Labour government would be “likely” to increase Capital gains tax (60 per cent), Inheritance tax (56 per cent) or Income tax (53 per cent). In fact, across a whole range of potential taxes, the public believe it’s more likely that Labour will raise them than the Conservatives. For many, that will be a key factor in deciding their vote on 4 July.
But look beneath the headline figures and something more interesting is happening: significant proportions of Labour voters say that Labour raising taxes – such as capital gains (56 per cent) and inheritance tax (51 per cent) – is “likely”.
More than that, they believe so in higher numbers for a potential Conservative government as well.
In short, lots of people voting Labour – the likely next government – think that tax rises are essentially going to happen no matter who gets in. It’s priced in.
So yes, there will be lots of Conservative voters worried about a Starmer government raising taxes. But there will be many (and perhaps more) Labour voters delivering the next government, who just think that some taxes, in particular on businesses and the wealthy, should go up.
There has been plenty of polls, some of them by Savanta, which suggest that if you give the public the choice between higher taxes and better public services versus lower taxes, they’ll go for the higher tax option.
So, some people may hear ‘more money out of my pocket’, others may well think ‘a better NHS’. In the short-term, Conservative attack lines on Labour may well stem the electoral flow away from them.
Longer-term, pricing in tax rises under a Labour government in the voter’s mind may well give Starmer the space he needs for some more radical public service reform.
The post Emma Levin: Conservative tax attacks cutting through, but does it matter? appeared first on Conservative Home.
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Author: Emma Levin
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