TOO BAD THEY HAVE NO OPPOSITION:

Gordon Brown ditches his beloved Prudence (Allister Heath and Fraser Nelson, November 28, 2004, The Business)

In a result that will dismay the Treasury ahead of Thursday's pre-Budget report, 48% of voters agree with the statement that "[GORDON Brown, Britain's chancellor of the exchequer] is becoming an imprudent chancellor who has spent too much so that taxes will have to rise". Only 45% agree that he "remains a prudent chancellor who has controlled spending and run the economy well", according to the ICM survey for Reform, a free-market think-tank.

Two-thirds of voters are convinced taxes will go up if Labour wins the election, despite the chancellor's insistence that he remains on course to meet his fiscal rule without the need to hike taxes. Among Labour voters, 61% believe taxes will go up.

But in a blow to the Tories, 54% also believe that taxes will go up if the Conservatives were to win the next election, including 39% of Conservative voters, confirming widespread disillusionment with all politicians.

In a turnaround that marks a watershed in British public opinion, 50% of respondents don't want taxes to go up even to pay for more public services, against 48% who do. By 79% to 18%, voters agree with the statement that "public services need reform more than they need extra money", a proposition that gains even more support from Labour voters.

But by 59% to 39% voters also agree that "public services can only really improve if they receive more money from the government" - but nearly half of the 59% are unwilling to pay more tax to fund these improvements, confirming a change in voter attitudes away from the tax-and-spend model endorsed by Brown.

That the Tories can't exploit this demonstrates how trivial they've rendered themselves in their retreat from Thatcherism.

Posted by Orrin Judd at November 28, 2004 11:05 AM