Labour now less trusted on the economy than Liz Truss, damning new poll finds

Sir Keir Starmer’s government is now less trusted on the economy than the Conservatives were under Liz Truss, a damning new poll has revealed.

Asked who they would trust with the economy, a YouGov poll showed 10 per cent of people said Labour – fewer than those who said they would trust Ms Truss, who presided over a shambolic tenure of the economy as prime minister.

Some 17 per cent said they would trust the Tories on the economy, 13 per cent said they would trust Reform UK, 8 per cent said they would trust the Green Party and 5 per cent said they would trust the Liberal Democrats.

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In October 2022, the month after her disastrous mini-Budget which spooked the financial markets in 2022 and led to a spike in mortgage rates and her eventual resignation, some 15 per cent of voters said they would trust the Conservatives with the economy.

Ms Truss, who was famously outlasted in power by a lettuce, has defended her time as prime minister and repeatedly blamed a “failed Treasury orthodoxy” for problems during her premiership.

The dire polling comes as Rachel Reeves faces accusations she lied about Britain’s finances in the run-up to the Budget in order to justify £26bn worth of tax hikes.

On Monday, just five days after the chancellor delivered the Budget, Sir Keir was forced to come out fighting with a speech insisting there was “no misleading” by his chancellor amid questions growing over his own future. He highlighted the “moral mission” of his government in tackling child poverty.

The accusation centres on a press conference given by Ms Reeves in November, in which she warned of the state of the public finances and suggested that income tax may have to go up.

It has since emerged that she failed to reveal information from the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) that showed tax receipts were much better than expected, ahead of her announcing sweeping tax rises.

The damning YouGov poll, commissioned by Sky News, found that more than a third of people think Ms Reeves exaggerated economic bad news in the run-up to the Budget – twice as many as those who thought she was honest.

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Some 37 per cent of people said they thought the chancellor said things were worse than they actually were, while just 18 per cent said they thought she was honest. Around 13 per cent said they thought things were better than she made out.

And in a damning verdict of the measures she unveiled last week, just 8 per cent of people said they think the Budget will leave the country better off. A tiny 2 per cent said they think the measures will leave them and their family better off.

Some 52 per cent think the country will be worse off, while 50 per cent think they and their family will be worse off.

It came as ministers were openly briefing about how they too had been misled by Sir Keir and Ms Reeves, with one telling The Independent that the aftermath of the Budget was “less than ideal”.

The YouGov poll spoke to 3,416 adults between 30 November and 1 December.