George Osborne is the most popular Conservative Chancellor ever. But he has not reached the heights of either Labour's Denis Healey or Gordon Brown.
A couple of days ago, Guido Fawkes revealed the shock poll that George Osborne is the “most popular Tory Chancellor ever”. What he failed to tell his readers is that Osborne is some way behind the popularity reached by two of Labour’s three most recent Chancellors: Gordon Brown in Labour’s first and second terms or Denis Healey in the late-1970s.
Although carefully avoiding any mention of Labour’s Chancellors, the picture used by Guido liberally used photoshop to remove the Labour data points. Left Foot Forward has gone through Ipsos-MORI’s fascinating slide pack on the Coalition’s first 100 days to dig out the full chart.
Gordon Brown’s popularity dipped into unsatisfied territory on only two occasions – once around the time of the fuel protests in 2000 and again as prepared to become Prime Minister – but he never hit the depths reached by Norman Lamont or Ken Clarke. The surprise finding is that Denis Healey was so popular despite presiding over the Winter of Discontent.
Some will argue that Healey’s popularity bodes well for George Osborne since he also undertook a period of fiscal consolidation. The difference, of course, is that the cuts in the 1970s were demanded by the IMF shielding Healey from some of the blame. And while Healey reduced the level of public expenditure from 49.7 per cent of GDP to 45.1 per cent, George Osborne is attempting to go twice as far by reducing the public sector from 48.1 per cent of GDP to below 40 per cent.
The eyebrows and piano playing helped too.
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19 Responses to “What Guido won’t tell you about Britain’s Chancellors”
Guido Fawkes
Brown was popular whilst he stuck to Tory spending plans. Darling was never popular.
It isn’t much of a headline to say “Osborne As Popular on Average As Healey and Brown”…
Lady Muck
RT @leftfootfwd: Labour's Chancellors are more popular than Osborne http://bit.ly/bKvy08 >> I agree altho the eyebrows bit may be debatable!
David Morris
That post on Guido’s blog was only meant as an analysis of Tory Chancellors. It’s wasn’t about Chancellor’s in general. There was no reason to include the approval ratings for Labour Chancellors.
william
all the evidence points to gordon brown’s economic mishandling as having cost us the election,as did healey’s grotesque taxation policies, which left us 20 years in the wilderness.the fact is that after the brilliant jenkins we were back in power in 4 years.i am predicting many years in the wilderness for us with these two economically illiterate brothers
OMC
Interesting about Guido’s ommission, though stepping back popularity doesn’t seem a particularly prudent way to evaluate a chancellor, not least because chancellors who spend lots (particularly on job security) are likely to be popular. I’m wary of any attempt to discuss the wisdom of cuts in the same breath as popular approval. This is not to say that Osborne isn’t cutting too fast, but rather that popularity seems hostage to chancellors of the left, or chancellors exhibiting political expediency viz. securing votes. (The point at which the former collapses into the latter is an interesting one)
One reason to think that Brown was popular was that for several years after 2000 Brown was able to increase public sector spending by a significant amount without people fearing the resurgence of a (problematic) deficit. He was able to invest (1997-2001 were 4 years of deep under-investment, not least because a Labour 1997 manifesto commitment was to maintain Tory fiscal pledges for 2 years). Problems with structural deficits looked far off – people were happy to see public services receiving the cash they badly needed. Pity it all happened too fast and was financed by debt rather than balanced revenue streams – pity Brown abandoned his own sustainability rules.
As for Healey – there so much economic experimentation in the 70s by successive Conservative and Labour chancellors in a short-space of time that there is really no way of assigning responsibility, not least because the then policy makers lacked the up-to-date economic data to inform their decisions. Perhaps you think that Healey was being evaluated on the strength of his economic policies, but I think it more likely he was being evaluated on the strength of the economy at any given moment – that’s more down to luck than anything.