A new poll in the Times says that the Budget has harmed, rather than helped, Gordon Brown’s chances of becoming Prime Minister. The poll shows that:

“the number of voters thinking that he [Brown] will be a good prime minister has dropped from 40 to 30 per cent since last December. Over the same three months, the number believing that he will not be a good prime minister has risen by eight points to 57 per cent.”

This is not looking good for Brown, especially when it is the younger voter groups amongst which he has lost most support – down 29 points in the 18-24 age group, and 28 points in the 25-34. The decline, however, has been “less severe” amongst middle-aged and OAP voters.

Gordo’s Budget headline figure ‘tax-cut’ of 2p hasn’t really done much to help him:

“Only 11 per cent think that they will pay less tax than before, with 26 per cent believing that they will pay more tax. Even a fifth (22 per cent) of unskilled workers, the group most likely to be in receipt of state benefits and tax credits, think that they will pay more in taxes. Moreover, by a three-to-one margin (26 per cent to 8 per cent), voters say that the Budget will make them less rather than more likely to vote Labour at the next election with Mr Brown as leader. However, 60 per cent say that it will make no real difference.”

However, the jibes of “Stalinist” tendencies has not made much impact with voters, with 70% saying that it makes no difference to their view of Brown as a future Prime Minister.

When you have the Shadow Chancellor saying:

“We’ve won… Look who is in trouble today. The papers are all about Gordon’s tax raids, Brown on the back foot, empty gestures, stealth taxes, robbing Peter to pay Paul… This Budget is unravelling.”

then it probably hasn’t really worked all that well.

But what I think was Gordo’s biggest mistake was trying to sell his 2p “tax cut” as a tax cut, and introducing at the end in such a manner. Now he has lost, or at least weakened, one of his biggest weapons against the Tories – that tax cuts mean less public ‘investment’ or expenditure.

Well done Gordon!

Sources: The Times, The Telegraph