After last year’s tax-raising budget, UK chancellor Rachel Reeves assured the public that Labour had “wiped the slate clean” and would not be coming back for more. And yet this year, the chancellor froze tax thresholds and introduced several other tax-raising measures in a budget that was called “brutal” even before it was delivered.

This reversal helps to explain why Reeves is, according to one poll, the UK’s most unpopular chancellor on record. And she’s not alone. Depending on which polling you think is most credible, Keir Starmer comes out as either the most unpopular prime minister since records began in 1977, or merely on a par with Boris Johnson, just prior to his scandal-plagued resignation in 2023.

Clearly, the Labour government has got off to a bad start. But might the bad vibes be fleeting? Is there a way to fairly and objectively assess the performance of governments that cuts through the noise?

It’s difficult to identify objective criteria for judging a government. I have already alluded to one possible measure, in the form of public opinion polls. But many would argue that the best measure of a government is whether or not it does what’s “good”.

In this regard, the government’s defenders might point to decisions such as scrapping the two-child benefit cap at this budget or raising minimum wage. The problem with this approach is that it’s deeply subjective and depends on moral and ethical........

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