A couple weeks ago David wrote about the UK Labour Pary's attempts to meddle in the US election on behalf of Kamala Harris. But PM Keir Starmer might want to save some of that support for himself as he's currently suffering from the worst collapse of approval  in recent UK history as he prepares to roll out his first new budget full of tax increases.

Keir Starmer has suffered the biggest post-election fall in approval ratings of any British prime minister in the modern era.

Just months after coming to office, the U.K. Labour leader is already languishing on an approval rating of -38, new polling of 1,012 adults by More in Common found.

It marks a precipitous 49-point drop from the +11 rating Starmer logged just after Labour won its landslide general election victory in July.

PM Starmer is now less popular than the conservative PM he just replaced a few months ago. Raising taxes will do that.

When it comes on Wednesday, Chancellor Rachel Reeves' budget will finally set out Labour’s concrete priorities after a stuttering start in office in which it has made a series of unforced errors and watched its poll ratings plummet.

Reeves, Britain's top finance minister, will seek to plug what she terms a £22 billion fiscal “black hole” left by the previous government through a set of “tough” spending cuts and tax rises which have been well-advertised in the months since the election.

Labour made a promise not to raise taxes on "working people" but has since had a hard time pinning down what that means. 

Starmer’s government has stumbled into another political quagmire in recent days as he grasps to define “working people," variously arguing that this term should or shouldn’t include people with assets and shares.

As Luke Tryl, director of polling firm More in Common, sums it up: “Not raising taxes on working people leaves you with a very small group of people who wouldn’t describe themselves like that.”

Starmer has already seemingly broken his promise with a plan to raise the minimum fee for bus riders. If people taking the bus to work aren't working people than I'm not sure anyone qualifies.

Hopefully, Starmer's own serious problems will give him less latitude to meddle in US politics. As Ed pointed out, he and his party are also connected to a group that appears to be trying to take down Elon Musk's X through something called the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Hate in this case means any speech the left hasn't pre-approved.