SpecData

Tick tock. There are less than 48 hours to go until Rachel Reeves’s big Spring Statement on Wednesday and as the Treasury finalises its preparations for the big reveal, YouGov has been running some tax-related tests of its own. In a blow for the reds, the polling company has found that it is becoming more difficult for the Labour lot to blame the Tories for its tax and spend decisions – with an increasing number of people seeing Sir Keir Starmer’s government as responsible for tough tax calls. In a survey conducted between the 18-19 March, YouGov found that 80 per cent of Brits say UK finances are in a

Boris Johnson is trying to wash his hands of the unprecedented wave of migration that has seen more than one million people move to the UK in each of the last three years. He was confronted about this ‘Boriswave’ on the Triggernometry podcast yesterday and told the hosts that rather than being the result of his decisions, Covid and the Migration Advisory Committee were to blame. Are his explanations convincing? First, he said the bounce was due to people leaving the country in the pandemic and returning afterwards: ‘If you look at what actually happened, the numbers go down, we had a huge number of people leave the country because of Covid…

Is Nigel Farage’s position under threat? Most inside Reform don’t seem to think so – but a new poll offers a warning shot to the Clacton MP. It transpires that a third of the party’s voters think Reform would be performing better if he stepped down and allowed another to take his place. Who might they have in mind? With the explosive events of the weekend threatening to derail the party, the YouGov survey could hardly land at a worse time… The civil war that has engulfed the right-wing party over the last week appears to have left its supporters feeling split too. The fallout between Farage and Rupert Lowe

Small boat crossings since the start of the year are at a record level. Yesterday 326 migrants arrived, bringing this year’s total to 3,224. Last year 2,983 migrants crossed the Channel over the same period. The number who have made the journey since Keir Starmer became Prime Minister, having promised to ‘stop the small boat crossings’, is 24,666. The figures are in stark contrast to the US, where Donald Trump recently announced that ‘the invasion of our country is over’ with attempts to illegally cross the US-Mexico border at a record low. Border agents had 8,326 encounters with migrants in February, Trump said; there were 190,000 in the same month last year.  One of

The Spectator Project Against Frivolous Funding, or Spaff, has been launched this week to shine a light on government waste. To help track down examples of frivolous spending, The Spectator has created a search engine that allows anyone to look at government transactions, foreign aid projects and procurement contracts all in one place for the first time. If you’re like me, and your eyes light up at the idea of rooting out government profligacy, the search engine is a treat. Here’s what I’ve found so far: Let’s start with the Arts Council, which has burnt through a tremendous amount of taxpayer cash. Particular funding highlights are a feminist creative coding

Another day, another positive poll result for Reform. The latest Westminster voting intention poll from YouGov shows Nigel Farage’s party swooping into first place – again. More than a quarter of Brits would vote for the Reform crowd if there were a general election tomorrow, with the party up a point since last week and on its highest figure to date in a YouGov poll. Watch out Keir… The Labour lot received the backing of 25 per cent of poll respondents – also up a point on the previous week – to land in second place, while Kemi Badenoch’s boys in blue came third with just over a fifth of

Nigel Farage’s Reform party are now out in front at the top of The Spectator data hub’s poll tracker. The latest update to our poll of polls puts Reform one point above Labour – on average – at 25 per cent of the vote with the Tories in third place at 22 per cent.  A flurry of polls in the last couple of weeks show continued decline in support for the Tories with nearly all of the benefits going to Reform. Meanwhile, support has continued to slip away from the Labour party. The result: Reform on top.  The poll that tipped them over the top came from FindOutNow who surveyed some 2,487

Back in July 2019, Donald Trump called Boris Johnson ‘Britain Trump’, before adding ‘that’s probably a good thing, they like me over there’. Awkwardly for Johnson at the time, this was certainly not the case for the majority of Brits, even among those who backed Boris. In 2019, 7 in 10 thought Donald Trump had been a bad president, including a majority of Conservative voters.  While Johnson might have squirmed at Trump’s endorsement back then, politicians in the UK today seem to be rushing to ingratiate themselves with the new administration. And it’s not just politicians changing their minds, British voters are also warming to Trump 2.0. New data from