Keir Starmer has launched a dramatic shakeup of his Downing Street team as he hails the “second phase” of his government amid dire poll ratings and a sluggish economy. The Prime Minister has beefed up Number Ten’s economic muscle, bringing in his Chancellor’s top minister, Darren Jones, to fill a newly created position alongside a new economic adviser.
The moves come as the latest City AM/Freshwater Strategy poll of UK voters shows the PM’s personal approval rating has slumped to an all time low.
Starmer’s net approval hit a record low of minus 41 as Brits brace for a tax-raising Budget in the autumn.
The drop in approval ratings exposes the intense pressure Labour faces ahead of this year’s Budget as Rachel Reeves is poised to raise at least £20bn in taxes in order to rebuild her fiscal buffer amid low growth and higher borrowing costs.
Yesterday the yield on the UK’s 30 year bond hit the highest level since 1998, adding to the pressure on Reeves.
Following his summer break, Starmer’s flurry of appointments on Monday included moving Darren Jones, previous Reeves’ deputy, to the newly-created position of chief secretary to the prime minister. Jones is set to oversee delivery of policy across the government’s core missions.
Starmer ‘should have fired Reeves’
The prime minister also recruited former Bank of England deputy governor Minouche Shafik as his economics adviser and Dan York-Smith, a civil servant in the Treasury, as his principal private secretary.
The Conservatives said the changes in personnel did not bode well for Rachel Reeves, with shadow business secretary Andrew Griffith claiming Starmer should have “gone the whole hog and fired her”.
Reeves may still have to bear the brunt of unpopular decisions as the majority of voters (57 per cent) polled by City AM and Freshwater Strategy said they would rather the government cut tax and reduced spending, while only one third (32 per cent) said they would prefer tax increases to fund public services.
Half of Labour voters (51 per cent) said they would prefer tax cuts over more spending.
Three quarters of voters said they were anticipating tax hikes at the Budget, with around four in five (78 per cent) saying they feared that higher taxes would damage the UK economy.
Tax hikes loom large
Of the rumoured tax hikes coming later this year, increasing duties on alcohol and extending national insurance to rental income received the most support.
Introducing capital gains on primary property sales and reducing the tax-free pension lump sum were the least popular tax hikes polled.
Labour officials will be hoping that changes to the main policy team can help it claw back the support that allowed it to secure the largest government majority in 25 years just over 12 months ago.
Ahead of the Budget, all political parties are preparing for their conference season with Reform UK kicking off the jamboree this weekend.
Ousted Labour politicians Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana are meanwhile on the hunt for a name for their new party as they seek to challenge the government from the left.
City AM/Freshwater Strategy polling showed voters haven’t warmed to Jeremy Corbyn since he was slung out of the Labour party, while his co-leader Zarah Sultana has yet to make an impression. Their respective net approval ratings were shown to be minus 27 and minus seven.
It is the first time voters were asked about the pair in City AM/Freshwater Strategy’s poll, although a majority of respondents said they had either never heard of Sultana or did not have an opinion.