By breaking their promises on tax in the upcoming Budget, Labour risk not just deepening distrust in politics but animating the politics of anger, writes Herald columnist Mark McGeoghegan.

Trust in politics is at rock bottom, as is satisfaction with government performance north and south of the border. While record-low satisfaction with the Scottish Government is a recent phenomenon, the crisis of trust in our institutions and the people who run them is a long-running, chronic problem.

The looming budget, in which the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, is expected to break Labour’s manifesto promise not to raise income tax, employee national insurance, or VAT, puts Labour at the epicentre of that crisis of trust. It also threatens to animate deeper and more dangerous emotions.

Political trust in Scotland was, for over a decade, buttressed first by perceptions of the SNP Scottish Government as competent, and then by the polarisation of the Scottish public on independence. According to the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey, in 2021 61% of Scots trusted the Scottish Government to work in Scotland’s best interests, below the SNP peak in 2015 of 73% but higher than had been recorded at any point under the Labour-Liberal Democrat governments of the 2000s.

Two years later, in 2023, that had fallen to an all-time low of 47%.........

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