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Calton Hill and Edinburgh city scenic view at sunset Beautiful view of Edinburgh at sunset Edinbourgh United Kingdom.
Labour takes the lead in Scotland
Good news for Britain’s Labour Party: Anew poll from YouGov shows that, for the first time in nearly a decade, the party leads in Scotland, a result that can bolster its already-high odds of winning the UK’s next general election, probably this fall.
Years ago, Labour could count on votes in Scotland, where the Conservative Party is traditionally less popular than in England and Wales, to boost its seat total in the UK parliament. In 2010, a year when Scotland’s own Gordon Brown led Labour, the party won 41 of Scotland’s 59 seats. But as demand for an independence referendum lifted the Scottish National Party to prominence, Labour won just one seat in Scotland in 2015 and the same in 2019.
But the SNP, burdened with the disappointment of the failed referendum, a poor economy, and scandals that engulfed once-popular leader Nicola Sturgeon, has faded, and Labour is again in favor with Scottish voters.
Nationally, Labour already leads Conservatives by 20 points. A restoration in Scotland could help the party and its current leader, Sir Keir Starmer, secure the landslide win they seek and a return to 10 Downing Street for the first time in 14 years.UK Labour Party leader Keir Starmer.
Gut check for Labour Party leader as England votes
On Thursday, millions of voters across England will cast ballots in the last set of local elections before a general election next year. At stake are more than 8,000 council seats … and the reputations of the two men leading the largest two parties.
For now, the Labour Party still holds a double-digit polling lead across the UK, but the party’s leader, Keir Starmer, faces doubts about his personal appeal.
As votes are counted in coming days, Labour hopes for local gains of at least 600 seats – though election experts insist the location of the seats matters too. Falling short of that number would leave Labour far less confident headed into next year, particularly at a time when doubts over Starmer’s likeability remain, and as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has restored some of the appeal his Conservative Party lost during the hyper-tumultuous premierships of David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss.
Local elections will follow two weeks from now in Northern Ireland, though there are no votes scheduled in Scotland or Wales.
Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt poses with the budget box at Downing Street in London, Britain March 15, 2023.
A new attitude and a new budget: Can the Tories make a comeback?
Weeks after the International Monetary Fund forecast that the UK will be the worst-performing advanced economy this year, British Chancellor Jeremy Hunt on Wednesday handed down a fresh national budget. (Though the independent Office for Budget Responsibility now says that the economy will only contract by 0.2% this year, an improvement on previous forecasts of 1.4%.)
Budgets can have a massive impact on politics. You’ll likely remember that ephemeral PM Liz Truss’ “mini” budget last fall caused the markets to nosedive, leading to her swift resignation.
As the UK grapples with a dire cost-of-living crisis and a sky-high annual inflation rate of 10.1%, Hunt tried to convey that the government will address falling living standards without overspending while also stimulating growth after years of sluggish economic performance. For context, real household disposable income, a key standard-of-living metric, is expected to drop 5.7% between 2022 and 2024.
Indeed, the budget laid out public spending measures opposed by some Tory hardliners, including a £4 billion additional investment in free childcare and an extension until the end of June of a £2,500 annual energy price cap to offset rising energy costs as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
What's more, the Tories will stick to an earlier plan to raise the corporate tax rate by 6 percentage points to 25%, a move unpopular with fiscally conservative Tories. A significant budgetary development is the abolition of limits on the amount workers can build up in their pension funds before paying tax, which is aimed at keeping some professionals in the workforce for longer. There are also some tax breaks offered to businesses to boost investment.
Much of Hunt’s budget focuses on the need to plug a hole in the labor market and boost productivity after years of sluggish growth. Crucially, while the economies of other advanced countries including the US, Canada, Japan, and the EU now exceed their pre-pandemic levels, Britain’s GDP remains stagnant. This trend started after the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and was further exacerbated by the Brexit fallout, which raised trade barriers and created a climate of uncertainty and chaos.
The challenge is now on Labour leader Keir Starmer to recast his party’s opposing message. Love him or hate him, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a mild-mannered technocrat who is on a mission to mend relationships around the globe, can hardly be accused of the gross incompetence that plagued his predecessors.
With general elections slated for next year, can Starmer maintain the 20-point advantage Labour currently enjoys after the implosion of the Conservative Party under Boris Johnson – or is this the beginning of the Tories’ comeback?