Why voters don't think Starmer will deliver.

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Afternoon!

The Conservatives and Labour have spent the past week insisting they alone have the answers on tax – but new polling suggests neither main party is trusted not to increase further an already historic burden.

Tax rises expected under both Sunak and Starmer

Some 43 per cent of voters fear their taxes will go up under Sir Keir Starmer and Labour, according to a new More in Common/Bloomberg survey, while 40 per cent anticipate further tax rises if Rishi Sunak and the Tories remain in power.

Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, last week insisted taxes would rise under Labour “as sure as night follows day”, while the official opposition accused Sunak and Hunt of a £46bn black hole over their long-term ambition of abolishing National Insurance.

For all the mud-slinging, large swathes of the public are convinced the tax burden will go up regardless of who governs, with only 12 per cent expecting tax cuts under Labour. Despite promises to the contrary by Hunt last week, just 10 per cent think the Tories will cut their taxes if re-elected.

“You would have expected the Conservatives to have an advantage on not putting up taxes,” Luke Tryl, the UK director of More In Common, tells me.

“But the fact that people think both parties are equally likely to put up taxes just suggests to me that people basically have seen what the Conservatives have done and in the 14 years in office the tax rises they have introduced have eroded their reputation.

“That makes it harder to prosecute Labour on tax rises. Basically the public thinks whoever comes in, there’s going to have to be tax rises. And on the two National Insurance cuts, people don’t seem to have given the Tories the credit that you might have expected.”

Low expectations of Starmer’s six pledges

Not only are voters cynical about Starmer and tax, they also doubt he can deliver when it comes to the flagship six pledges he unveiled last week.

While his promises are broadly popular, more than half (53 per cent) of those surveyed believe he is unlikely to achieve all of them during the first term of a future Labour government.

Tryl adds: “Part of it is a lack of faith in politicians generally to do stuff that will make tangible improvements to everyday life.”

“There’s a belief that Starmer is unlikely to achieve all of his pledges in the first term. I think lots of us would say they’re not the most ambitious pledges, but even then, more than half say they don’t think Starmer will manage. It shows you where public cynicism is at.

‘Not inconceivable’ politicians could face prosecution over infected blood scandal'

The Work and Pensions Secretary has said politicians and officials being prosecuted over the infected blood scandal is “not inconceivable”, my colleagues Jack Maidment and Genevieve Holl-Allen report.

Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, said the question of whether criminal charges could be brought was not a matter for the Government but he believed “all of those things should and will be looked at”.

He told Times Radio: “It is not inconceivable that what you have described may be something that transpires. But as I say, that is a matter on the criminal charges side of things for the police and the CPS.”

And in a further interview with LBC, Stride said Lord Clarke has questions to answer over his role in the scandal, after the inquiry concluded the Tory peer misled the public in an “indefensible” way over the risks from transfusions.

Until next time,

Dominic