
YouGov post-budget polling
We used to get a flurry of opinion polling around a budget, but this year there has been very little. Part of that will be polling’s recent troubles (many companies are doing much less polling than before the election), perhaps it is just because it wasn’t a very interesting budget. If Hammond had done something that was spectacularly unpopular I expect many newspapers would have been scampering to commission a poll, as it was however, it was rather a dull affair and few seem to have bothered. I think the only post-budget poll we’ve seen is YouGov for the Times.
Topline figures there were CON 39%(-1), LAB 41%(-2), LDEM 7%(nc). Fieldwork was Wednesday afternoon/evening and Thursday and changes are from the Sun-Monday before the budget.
Even after a year and a bit in the job a large chunk of the public have no real opinion of Philip Hammond – 48% say they don’t know if he’s doing a good or bad job (20% say good, up five points from before the budget, 32% say bad, down three points from before the budget). Asked whether he or John McDonnell would do a better job as Chancellor 23% pick Hammond, 13% McDonnell and a hefty 64% say don’t know. Put simply, this is a comparison between two people who the general public either don’t know or don’t care about.
Moving to the question of wider economic expectations, people expect the state of the economy to get worse over the next twelve months by 51% to 11%, and expect their own personal finances to get worse by 40% to 12%.
The budget itself seems to have gone down adequately. All the budget measures YouGov asked about recieved more support than opposition, with the most popular being giving extra money to the NHS (87% thought it was a good idea) and increasing the National Living Wage (82% a good idea). The least were extending the young persons railcard up to the age of 30 (45% a good idea) and setting aside money for Brexit plannong (48% good idea). Most of the changes were giveaways of some sort of course, without anything likely to cause a big political row – the most contentious issue after the budget seemed not to be the unpleasant things Hammond had done, but whether his Stamp Duty cut would actually have a negative impact and whether the changes to Univeral Credit were enough.
On those two issues, only 9% of respondents thought that the Universal Credit changes went far enough and addressed all the problems, 45% think there are still problems with the policy (7% thought no changes should have been made and 39% said don’t know). On Stamp Duty for first time buyers, only 30% thought this would help make housing more affordable, 45% thought it would make no real difference (and 10% thought it would make housing even less affordable).
Overall, 34% of people thought Hammond’s budget was fair, 23% unfair. YouGov ask that same question after every budget, and that answer is pretty so-so. Nothing to shout about, but not the sort of negative reaction that Osborne got in 2016 or 2012. Full tabs are here.