Britain Elects reports that Labour has lost it's poll lead on the economy.

One of the reasons, opinion polls suggest, that the Conservatives were in office from 2010 to 2024 was that for fourteen years the party maintained a lead as the party most trusted to manage the economy.

One of the factors in Labour taking over last year was that they took over, and held for two years until now, a lead on this issue.

Labour has now lost that lead.

Britain Elects has an interesting article - well, interesting to political anoraks like me, anyway - on the subject, written by Ben Walker, which you should be able to get to by clicking on the link below:

 Labour loses its lead on the economy - by Ben Walker

Some extracts:

"Today Britain Elects is launching a new poll tracker. Who of the two main parties does the country trust most to manage the economy?

Because a hard-won perception of competence on this issue has, it seems, been blown away by a series of communications failures and policy decisions."

"There can be no doubt the comms of this new Labour government in its introductory - its most defining - months has been appalling.

When voters were pushed to name a positive Labour story, according to More in Common, few came to mind. Instead, the defining stories were the ones every Labour activist loves to hate: winter fuel, releasing prisoners, family farms, the one pound rise on bus fares, Lord Alli’s freebies. These are the stories the voters know. There’s no getting away from that.

Only one of the five Labour policy decisions with more than 80 per cent awareness is viewed positively - the minimum wage rise."

"For the early 2010s, the sentiment that “difficult decisions” had to be made when it come to the public finances was widespread. It stymied a Labour recovery, and kept the Cons trusted with the nation’s finances.

But ... following an international calamity in which a great many people of medium means had to experience welfare, that sharp elbowed “let’s kick away the ladder” approach is not as endemic as it used to be.

"For the government of the day to come in harsh and triumphant on welfare cuts, appearing to think 2010 was only yesterday, represents a poor misreading of the room."

"Might this crash and burn in the Labour lead be less down to a failure in comms, and more about Labour’s own decision-making?

Perhaps."

"The crisis in the cost of living did not subside on 4th July 2024. It persists. Perhaps its persistence is what’s primarily rendering perceptions of the government poor, rather than its own comms."

These are extracts which I think give a reasonable precis of the Ben Walker piece, the whole thing is available on the Britain Elects website.