Can Gordon ignore the attacks from the left?

With the Brown betting price for Labour leader now moving to 0.2/1 there’s a sharp attack on his strategy from someone who, until now, was one of the Chancellor’s biggest and most influential media supporters – Polly Toynbee of the Guardian.

Part of her piece is reproduced above (click on it to read the whole article) and her point can be summed up in on sentence – “For the sake of a quick bright budget day surprise Brown risks throwing away an advantage. It put the Tories in a quandary, but it doesn’t help Labour’s case either.”

The Independent this morning reports that some Labour MPs are voicing concern over the number of lower income earners who will be worse off because of the tax changes.

John McDonnell, the left-winger who was first to declare his candidature, is making attacks on the budget a key plank of his campaign and has this feature on the New Statesman web-site.

We’ll probably have to wait until the weekend papers for the first post-budget tests of public opinion.

It’s worth recalling that in the aftermath of last year’s budget Labour moved to a 4% lead with ICM and a 5% one with Ipsos-Mori though I doubt whether we will see any figures on this scale this year.

The general election betting has seen a move to Labour.

Mike Smithson