MPs brace for Burnham to call a May election as a post-Budget poll puts Labour eight points ahead of Reform
From the Newshound archive · first published 1 November 2026.
John Healey, the Chancellor, said considering a formal apology did not mean British people today should bear financial liability for events "hundreds of years ago in which they had no role.An Opinium poll conducted 28–30 October found 60 per cent of Britons believe the Budget merely tinkered with small things, failing to address welfare and defence.
Labour is bracing for a snap election after an Opinium poll conducted largely in the wake of Wednesday's Budget placed the party on 30 per cent, with Reform and the Tories statistically tied on 22 per cent and 20 per cent respectively. Electoral Calculus estimates that split could hand Burnham a majority of nearly 100 seats. Speculation has intensified because Chancellor John Healey deferred the hardest spending choices — among them a path to defence budgets reaching 3 per cent of GDP — to a spending review scheduled for the second half of next year.
Kemi Badenoch warns the deferred commitments could leave a £49billion hole in the public finances by 2030-31.
A separate snap poll by More In Common found 60 per cent of Brits think the Budget merely 'tinkered with small things' and failed to address welfare and defence.
The OBR has warned that freezing income tax and National Insurance thresholds will cost Britain 215,000 jobs by 2030.
