Luke Tryl✓

🧵We just ran a focus group in Portsmouth North speaking to voters who had backed Labour in 2024. The group watched the first 10 minutes of today's 6:00 news on the Budget. Fair to say a mixed reaction to the Budget. Appreciative of small steps but a sense it was a 'stop gap'

Usual caveats, just one group, but a sign that perhaps while headline measures will poll well they may not add up to more than the sum of their parts in convincing people the government is up for addressing the big challenges of the day.

Or in other words the risk for Burnham, for campaign aficionados, is that at some point Burnham or Farage are able to do a Mondale on Hart to him with 'where's the beef'

Government has to be happy with this as top BBC headline and appears to lead most bulletins

RT @LukeTryl: Struck by the softly populist tone this Budget is taking, smaller measures than some previous budgets so far - but more overtly political. Targeting areas public have little sympathy for (landlords, gambling, banks) in exchange for broader (if not deeper) cost of living relief

Badenoch's focus squarely on lack of what she's as action on defence, welfare and tax cuts. Given a harder budget to find big unpopular things. Makes sense to lean into thermostatic turn in favour of lower taxes and we know that this is particularly the case on the right

Tax reduction has crept up as a budget priority as has improving Britain's defence capabilities and if Badenoch can convince people that hasn't been prioritised.

Ditto on defence more would lean to cutting welfare in order to fund defence (though they are less convinced on specific areas of welfare spending), this is particularly the case with voters on the right, but also liberal democrat 2024 voters and all voters more likely to say welfare spending unsustainable

Badenoch's focus on lack of resilience in her speech has potential to chime, we know people feel increasingly discombobulated and that things are out of control whether it comes to bills, jobs, the international stage & Government doesn't seem able to shield people form them

Lots of people think both they are 'one bad bill' away from a crisis and the government is one bad incident away from something catastrophic and we don't have the individual, local or national resilience to be able to deal with it and a sense of being knackered

One of the real constants in British public opinion is that people think that it matters not just for Ukraine but for the UK that Ukraine defeats Russia, which spans voters of all parties and so no surprise the Government leaned into further support in the Budget

Unlike the US President Britons tend to think that strikes on Russia's oil plants are justified and don't support the US deal on weakening Russian sanctions.

And worth saying while almost every issue we've tested in recent years loses to cost of living, support for Ukraine is an exception. Brits are 12 points more likely to say that supporting Ukraine is more important than bringing down prices, again with voters of all main parties more likely to say that than not.