was going to post my one of these but literally just the same as Owen

No wonder I'm such a fence-sitter - and surprised there are so few of me out there!

Edinburgh West and North East Fife after a full term of the SNP having to bribe the Lib Dems to pass their Budgets:

This poll is a bit of an outlier in Scotland, but we're surprisingly close to the scenario where SNP and Greens don't have a majority between them. Would put Scottish Labour and Lib Dems in an awkward spot

Huh, I suddenly feel like less of an oddball (I kept going back and forth on whether to put city or town but it doesn't make that much difference)

Staggering change on this when I put in 'post-graduate'. Swung from strong Reform to strong Labour with a single answer.

It seems that people like me should be a bastion of Labour support. I have a sneaking suspicion that the reality might look quite different when people like me go to vote in London in a few weeks. I am of course not allowed to vote. Thank you, Brexit.

This is terrific fun. There are literally dozens of me!

This is properly fascinating, not least the demographic bit - if you put in your details in the build a voter tool you can see how common (literally) someone like you really is.

One thing that struck me in our updated Build a Voter data was just how Tory elderly Asian voters are now www.economist.com/interactive/... Big split between Hindus and Muslims, of course (although that's not a variable in our model)

I guess I'm demographically the Labour core vote now?

Never call me and my 399 friends British again

Build-a-voter is back! @fransham.bsky.social's creation is now updated for 2026 with data from More in Common. www.economist.com/interactive/... My profile is predictably Labour-leaning...

Reform UK's voter base looks strikingly like Boris Johnson's in 2019. I had a look what that means for British politics in 2026: www.economist.com/britain/2026...

From the Greens perspective, why would it be better to push for legal pay ratios rather than a higher minimum wage and higher taxes on high incomes? The latter (in theory) achieves the same thing but the former is so much easier to poke holes in

Your Party on 0% in this week's YouGov poll, while Restore is at 4%. Completes YP's Change UK trajectory

people will see this and still object to the idea that consumer sentiment doesn't always track material conditions

Why would Lammy think now is a good time to remind everyone what good friends he is with JD Vance?

I keep re-reading this

Funny chart I hadn't seen before. Because of the rising minimum wage, the share of people earning 2/3rds of the median income fell from 22% to 2.5% in twelve years

Delicious irony here: Orbán assumed opposition would be divided and rigged the electoral system to hugely favor the largest party. But seems Magyar’s movement won such a huge victory that it benefited from that system

How did Hungary's biggest cities vote? Budapest - Tisza+33 Debrecen - Tisza+23 Szeged - Tisza+39 Miskolc - Tisza+29 Pécs - Tisza+31 Győr - Tisza+25 Nyíregyháza - Tisza+31 Kecskemét - Tisza+25 Székesfehérvár - Tisza+22 Szombathely - Tisza+19 Érd - Tisza+26 Szolnok - Tisza+29 Tatabánya - Tisza+24

The nice irony here, of course, is that this is in no small measure the consequence of trying to bake your majority into the electoral system. Fidesz have fallen into their own elephant trap.

Fidesz aren't happy. Really bad vibes from their press conference right now. Are they getting ready to torpedo the result? Gergely Gulyas, a Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, is saying Fidesz has recorded plenty of voter fraud, and that this will need to be investigated. Short presser. No Q&A

Word of caution on mid-parliament MRPs www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Turnout is looking very high in Hungary

Happy Hungarian election day! Our final poll tracker update gives Tisza, the centre-right opposition, a 6pt lead over Orban's Fidesz: www.economist.com/interactive/...

Farage's Iran misstep and u-turn is revealing. If he couldn't avoid such an obvious blunder (presumably bc of loyalty to Trump), there are bound to be other, similar mistakes over the next 3yrs. (Although I guess Badenoch is determined to make them too...)

"In a fair system constituencies would contain similar numbers of voters...But in Hungary the average opposition voter now lives in a much more populous district than the average Fidesz voter does. The result is an increasingly pronounced [tilt] in Mr Orban’s favour."

Does... he think we should have just allowed the Iranians to bomb British bases?

Polanski's comms on Iran treat people as if they are stupid. You can disagree with the govt position (Greens believe Britain should ban the US from using its bases here + that we should not defend Gulf states—fine!), but the government has been up front about its position for weeks now

Could Hungary's voting system swing the election? Fraser McIlwraith and I took a look: www.economist.com/graphic-deta...

Inspired by the sunshine, I had a look at whether climate change means Britain's weather is getting more pleasant. Using Oxford's lovely long time series:

Owen Winter, our political correspondent, joins Britain’s right-wing populists on the campaign trail

This week's YouGov/Economist survey has Trump's approval at -23, lower than any YouGov/Economist poll of his first term and all but two under Biden. Smoothed average is at -20 www.economist.com/interactive/...

mad how visible the Ouse Washes are in satellite images

Here's something for the Irish Times in which I try to explain what's about to happen in Welsh politics. Hope it's of interest. www.irishtimes.com/world/uk/202...

Recent elections (DK, NLD, SLV, CZE) don't make much of a dent in my population-weighted moving average of European elections Conservative 23.9 (+0.4 vs March 2025) Right-wing/far-right 23.6 (-0.1) Social democrat 21.0 (-0.7) Liberal 12.3 (+1.0) Socialist 7.5 (-0.4) Green 4.5 (-0.1)

Trump's approval rating in YouGov/Economist is almost as bad now as Biden's was after the debate. Worse than any point in his first term, despite starting substantially higher

The groups that swung to Trump in 2024 are also the most exposed to increases in gas prices (part of the reason they switched in the first place!) www.economist.com/united-state...

Although the topline "approve" numbers haven't moved much, the number of Republicans who "strongly approve" of Trump's handling of Iran has fallen by 10 points www.economist.com/united-state...

Britain’s chancellor starts a tilt towards Europe www.economist.com/britain/2026...

Oil central heating is a mostly rural phenomenon, most common in East Anglia and West Wales

Funny that Americans on twitter assume he's meeting Corbynites when it's actually Rosie Wrighting and Gordon McKee www.politico.com/news/2026/03...

Points to Plaid+4 in an average accounting for house effects

Given how voters usually respond instinctively negatively towards anything Starmer does, these seem like pretty good numbers for him

This is a very good thread. We can perhaps quibble over self reports, but "average economic growth in the years you've been alive" is a very telling metric

Reform UK and the Greens are hoovering up financially insecure voters. My piece this week looks at the return of Britain's class politics (with a twist) www.economist.com/britain/2026...