Damning new polling of Britain’s publicans by Survation for the UK Spirits Alliance has poured cold water on boozers’ hopes ahead of Hunt’s budget. Two-thirds of pubs are reporting a decline in footfall and profits since September. In the Autumn Statement Hunt froze alcohol duty until August this year, though a previous 10.1% hike in line with inflation had already passed on massive costs to consumers. Leaving pub-goers feeling far from bubbly…

A whopping 96% of pubs say any increase in alcohol duty will result in a price increase while over half say all investment would come to an end and staff would have to be cut. Britain’s boozers are at massive risk with over 7,000 expected to go out of business this year. 62% of pubs say last summer’s “Brexit Pubs Guarantee”, designed to undermine supermarket booze, hasn’t worked well. Only real tax cuts will work to tickle the providers of our tipple…

Another week, another dire poll for the Tories. The Country Land and Business Association has a Survation poll which shows more than half of the 100 most rural seats in England will swing to Labour at the next election. 51 of these traditionally Tory heartlands. That’s a big loss considering they currently hold 96 of them. From breaking through the Red Wall to losing the Blue Wall in 5 years is quite an achievement…

Among those polled to lose their seat include:

• Jeremy Hunt
• Jacob Rees-Mogg
• Lucy Frazer
• Mark Harper
• Mel Stride
• Richard Holden
• Anne-Marie Trevelyan
• Andrea Leadsom
• Mark Spencer
• Graham Stuart
• Andrew Griffith
• Liam Fox
• Thérèse Coffey
• Julian Smith
• Karen Bradley
• Jeremy Wright
• Brendan Clarke-Smith
• Bernard Jenkin
• Bill Cash

With by-elections this week expected to bring more losses for the Tories, and GDP stats potentially showing the UK is in a recession, this is just the start of another hard week for Rishi…

Yesterday the Prime Minister was very excited about achieving the first one of his top five priorities – halving inflation before the years end, with Consumer Price Inflation (CPI) now down to 4.6% Rishi claimed the credit for what was largely down to global energy prices falling. Most people know governments can drive up inflation by printing money and proliferating spending, which to be fair to Sunak and Hunt they are holding the line on. Not everyone realises that consumer taxes also contribute to the CPI figure. In fact according to the Office for National Statistics* alcohol taxes contributed over a third of a percentage point to inflation.

If the government want to convince the public they are taking effective action on the cost of living they should not be adding to inflation in the Autumn Statement next week with consumer taxes. According to Survation 55% of the public think taxes on alcohol should remain at current levels or be reduced, so any action to reverse or at least hold the line on alcohol duty would be seen by voters as action on the cost of living and would be counter-inflationary. It would also reduce the CPI figure and help reach that 2% goal…

*The ONS paper  “…the 0.37 percentage point contribution to the annual rate in August 2023 from alcohol and tobacco was the largest from that division since the start of the National Statistics series in 2006.”

Ahead of the Autumn Statement next week, Survation conducted a 12,000 sample MRP survey of voting intentions related to a series of economic issues on behalf of the UK Spirits Alliance. The overall analysis found that two thirds of voters put the cost of living as one their top threes issues which will most affect how they vote at the next election. Labour leads on the cost of living issue and the economy generally. With 52% of voters associating the Conservatives with “more taxation” they have managed to lose their unique selling point as the low tax party to Labour.

Drilling down into the data for the views of voters in the Chancellor’s own new boundaries seat – Godalming and Ash – reveals that even in the Surrey Tory heartlands the majority (52%) think they’re paying too much tax, unsurprisingly 57% would support a duty cut and nearly two-thirds (62%) associate the Tories with high taxes. Following the corporation tax hike 55% don’t think the Tories support small business. Not an image the Chancellor will want in his constituency…

In the PM’s new boundaries seat of Richmond and Northallerton 55% want duty frozen or reduced, three fifths associate the Tories with high taxes and half (50%) don’t think the Tories support Small and Medium Businesses. The former Chancellor turned PM has only himself to blame.

Next week we are not expecting tax cuts in the Autumn Statement – we are told that can only happen when inflation is slayed. If the PM wants to disassociate high taxes from the Tories and win back the Blue Wall heartlands at least they should resist raising taxes on the wine and spirits that Tory voters drink. If they want to compound their problems with their core voters, hitting them with hike on their gin and tonics should do it… 

A new poll from Survation shows Labour and the SNP are virtually neck-and-neck in Scotland, with top psephologist Sir John Curtice now claiming every Scottish constituency will be a marginal seat at the next General Election. A YouGov poll last week had the two parties within four points of each other…

Now Survation says this:

• SNP – 37%
• Scottish Labour – 35%
• Conservatives – 17%
• LibDems – 6%

Just a two-point gap at the top…

Curtice says, according to current constituency boundaries, that would give the SNP and Labour 24 seats each:

“There’s certainly is all to play for so far as the representation of Scotland at Westminster at the next general election with potentially important implications for the overall outcome of the next UK General Election…

“Pretty much every seat in Scotland will be a marginal seat, and therefore a relatively small increase in the SNP lead, and all of a sudden those high expectations for Labour would not look quite so realistic. But equally, if the Labour Party could actually overtake the SNP in voting intentions in Scotland, something they’ve not yet managed to do according to any poll, then they could indeed, quite clearly be the dominant party so far as Scotland’s representation at Westminster is concerned.”

Music to Starmer’s ears. He better start learning the names of Anas Sarwar’s colleagues…

New polling, released this morning by Techne, puts Labour on 45% to the Conservatives on 30%. This represents a Labour lead over the Conservatives of 15%. It’s the joint lowest margin recorded by the pollster since Sunak became Prime Minister.

Techne aren’t the only pollster reflecting this trend. Last week, Opinium recorded a Labour lead of just 11%, whilst on Monday, Redfield & Wilton reported a 14% margin – both of which are also the smallest since Sunak took over. Going by the polling average in February, a 14% Labour lead represents a drop of 8% in just two months.

As the “noisy” scatter graph from above UK Polling Report shows a narrowing lead for Labour trend has developed this month. Before Tory MPs get too excited, this is what it probably means in terms of seats:

All of this explains why Savanta polling director, Chris Hopkins, told the i that the days of 20 point Labour polling leads are “gone” and “If it gets much smaller I think possibly we start to get into hung parliament territory”. The SNP’s electoral collapse further complicates electoral calculations. Survation recently put the SNP’s lead over Labour at 5% – the smallest since the 2019 election. There’s still a long time to go until Autumn 2024…