Voters see tractor tax as more damaging for Labour than Partygate for the Tories, poll reveals
Three of the prime minister’s most controversial decisions since taking office are seen as more toxic than the scandal of lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street during lockdowns, according to a new poll
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Your support makes all the difference.Sir Keir Starmer’s tax raid on family farms and his decision to scrap winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners are worse for Labour than Partygate was for the Conservatives, voters think.
Three of the prime minister’s most controversial decisions since taking office are seen as more toxic than the scandal of lockdown-busting parties in Downing Street during lockdowns, according to a new poll.
A majority (51 per cent) believe Sir Keir’s winter fuel cuts have been more damaging for Labour than Partygate was for the Tories, according to think tank More in Common. Just 16 per cent said Partygate was worse.
More than a third of voters said the family farm tax, dubbed the tractor tax, was more politically harmful to Labour than Partygate, with 24 per cent saying Partygate had a bigger impact.
And the PM’s decision to rule out compensation to women affected by changes to the state pension age was also seen as more harmful to Labour than Partygate, by a margin of 31 per cent to 22 per cent.
The poll, conducted for LBC, also found that a quarter of voters regret backing Sir Keir in July’s general election, when Labour won a landslide Commons majority.
The poll is the latest evidence of how the “tough decisions” being pursued by Labour since coming to power have harmed the party’s poll rating.
Sir Keir has now suffered a bigger drop in approval ratings at this point in office than any new prime minister since Sir John Major in 1992, with The Independent’s latest Techne UK tracker poll showing a three-way battle between Labour, the Tories and Reform UK ahead of May’s local elections.
On Sunday Wes Streeting claimed that voters will thank Labour in the long run for “unpopular decisions” it has made since coming to power, including the scrapping of winter fuel payments.
He said the government had to make decisions that were unpopular in its first six months in power, blaming “the massive hole Britain was left in” by the Conservatives.
But the warning that voters believe those decisions to have been more damaging to Labour than Partygate will set alarm bells ringing in Downing Street.
Liz Webster, founder of Save British Farming, told The Independent Sir Keir’s family farm tax raid “makes Boris Johnson and his Partygate seem minuscule”.
The scandal of lockdown-busting parties happening in Downing Street was one of the key contributors to Boris Johnson’s downfall as prime minister. As well, pollsters repeatedly warned that the saga tarnished the Conservative brand and was one of the main drivers, alongside Liz Truss’s disastrous premiership, of voters rejecting the Tories at the general election in July.
Since being elected with a landslide majority in July, Sir Keir’s government has stripped winter fuel payments of up to £300 for millions of elderly people, introduced inheritance tax changes dubbed a “family farm tax”, which critics fear will force farmers into selling up, and denied compensation payments to Waspi women.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced in July that winter fuel payments would be restricted only to those claiming pension credit, in a bid to save the government £1.5bn a year. The government has since admitted the decision will drive an additional 100,000 pensioners into poverty, while many fear thousands of deaths as a result of the cuts.
Then, at the Budget in October, Ms Reeves ended inheritance tax exemptions for farms worth more than £1m, although in some cases that threshold could be as high as £3m.
The tax change means previously exempt farms will be hit with a 20 per cent levy on farming assets worth more than £1m, with critics saying it will force family farmers to sell up and rip the heart out of Britain’s countryside.
Labour was last month accused of betrayal over its decision not to award compensation to the 3.8m women affected by state pension age changes, despite many front benchers having campaigned for such payments in the past, with work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall promising “lessons learned” but no cash.
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