Inflation is taxation without legislation
These two charts from YouGov really should frighten anyone in the Conservative Party, I’m a strong proponent of the belief that oppositions don’t win general elections, governments lose them, and these poll findings seem to indicate the Conservatives are on course to lose the next election.
The cost of living crisis, the tempest long foretold foretold, is shredding the reputation of the government as evidenced in the above YouGov findings. There’s a bit of irony that keeping inflation low is the responsibility of the Bank of England but the government is taking the hit. What explains the government’s poor rating is events such as the spring statement where Rishi Sunak failed to rise to the occasion.
Governments have won general elections during poor economic times (most famously John Major’s government in 1992) but there were many metrics that favoured the then government and John Major, which simply doesn’t exist this time for Boris Johnson and the current government. As the headline (a quote from Milton Friedman) to this piece says inflation ruins the finances of a lot of voters, who usually leads to a lack of enamourment with the government of the day, people don’t like paying more for the same things.
Last night DeltaPoll found Labour with an 8% lead on the economy, unless that changes alongside with the above YouGov finding I’m not changing my betting positions for the next election where Sir Keir Starmer is on course to be Prime Minister after the election.
TSE