Voters’ trust in Labour’s ability to handle the economy is now lower than it was in Liz Truss after the 2022 mini Budget, or when the party was led by Jeremy Corbyn. New polling shows the collapse in trust towards Labour, who led the Tories on economic matters by a substantial margin from 2022 to 2024.

However trust plummeted immediately following Rachel Reeves’ announcement cutting Winter Fuel last year, and has been on a rapid continuing decline ever since. A new YouGov poll published today shows that just one in 10 voters think Labour is the best party to handle the economy. This is below the 15% support for the Tories under Liz Truss, even despite the market chaos following the mini Budget, and the 12% support for Jeremy Corbyn in 2019 – at the time a record low.

Ms Reeves’ actions in No. 11 Downing Street have led to Labour falling below both the Tories, and for the first time Reform UK.

18.3% say they trust the Tories the most, which while putting them in first place is substantially lower than their high of 44% in May 2020 during the pandemic.

Ms Badenoch and Sir Mel Stride, her shadow Chancellor, have enjoyed a lead over Labour since last November, though it has now grown to a record high of six points.

Reform UK is in second, rising sharply from just 4.7% in May to 12.7% today.

The LibDems and Green languish in fourth and fight place, on 6.3% and 6% respectively.

The survey came alongside other post-Budget polling by YouGov, which found that over a third of voters believe Rachel Reeves exaggerated economic bad news in the run-up to the Budget as a precursor to breaking her manifesto pledges on tax.

This compares to just 18% who said she was broadly honest.

52% of Britons say the Budget will make them worse off, compared to just 29% who said it will make no difference and just 8% who believe they will be better off.

The two biggest measures in the Budget – freezing the tax thresholds and abolishing the two child benefit cap – are also panned by voters, with 58% saying both policies were the “wrong thing to do”.

Fewer than one in three voters back abolishing the two-child benefit cap, after Ms Reeves was forced into announcing it by hard-left Labour backbenchers.

And 57% of voters say the Chancellor has now broken her election promises not to hit working people with new taxes, compared to just 13% sticking by her side.

Yesterday the head of the OBR was forced to quit after his body accidentally published the Budget plans an hour before Ms Reeves rose to announce them in the Commons.

However Tory leader Kemi Badenoch said the wrong person had resigned over the Budget, and Ms Reeves must also go for breaking her tax pledges.