Politics experts at a Welsh university have launched a website that brings the excitement of fantasy sports to political forecasting, offering an interactive way to engage with the 2026 Senedd election

We've published the 2025 local elections handbook in collaboration with the University of Exeter's Elections Centre. This includes ward- and candidate-level results from last year's locals. commonslibrary.parliament.uk/2025-local-e...

Experimental participants to us

In launching the Welsh Labour manifesto, Eluned Morgan did not mention Keir Starmer once.

This War Will Destabilize The Entire Mideast Region And Set Off A Global Shockwave Of Anti-Americanism vs. No It Won’t

Since election observing and Democracy Volunteers is making the rounds on socials, leading to all kinds of conspiracy theories, I feel I should give my two cents at someone who's volunteered with them both in the UK and abroad. (See wind-ruined haircut at Caerphilly by-election last year)

Imagine devoting your entire career to selling the idea that the British public hates wokery and is clamouring for radical right wing populism, only to then be defeated in an actual election by the most left wing possible coalition of politicians and activists in the country. It's got to hurt

While you're all messing around on Bluesky: I have a new working paper on the Gallagher index, the most common measure of disproportionality. TL;DR: I show that it is constrained by the size of the party system, which can cause problems comparing elections across time and space.

"Family voting, where two voters either confer, collude or direct each other on voting is a breach of the Ballot Secrecy Act. Anyone found guilty of breaching these secrecy requirements could face a fine or imprisonment for up to six months." (Source: www.politico.eu/newsletter/l...)

But it is another example of how Reform boost turnout for progressive parties. They are so profoundly toxic. When you put it alongside the Tories losing their deposit, the right have a serious problem.

Always time for an entry into Welsh politics in May if he fancies another go...

Love the glimpse into the beautiful mind that notated this used copy of Moby Dick I got

oh come on

Why do I have to pretend that I'm going to print something in order to save it as a PDF. Why do I have to engage in a little ruse.

📮 Full text of the letter calling on the Government to engage with the growing risks First Past the Post now presents ✍️ Signatories include leading academics, political scientists and constitutional experts - including a former Chief Executive of the UK Electoral Commission 👇 Read it in full

this feels like a spoof from The Day Today

Happy birthday to one of my favourite haters, Charles Darwin

For the craic - The trendines for each pollster from 2024 to now

I have a new paper. We look at ~all stats articles in political science post-2010 & show that 94% have abstracts that claim to reject a null. Only 2% present only null results. This is hard to explain unless the research process has a filter that only lets rejections through.

Macbeth: SHIT

Apparently the zombocom domain expired yesterday and was presumably bought out by some other jackass who launched this vibe-coded IMPOSTOR

More geographical confusion. Nigel Farage said Reform's new leader in Wales had "come back to the Valleys", so his children could grow up Welsh. Nation Cymru report he had moved from London to Bath in the west of England, about 50-60 miles from Islwyn, across the border nation.cymru/news/the-new...

ten years ago today no one clapped

🚨🚨 NEW BLOGPOST 🚨🚨 The right wing should be worried about young men. Unlike Europe and the US, British young men are swinging wildly behind progressive parties. Some thoughts on why, and why most of the right are ignoring it. open.substack.com/pub/joxleywr...

Cardiff University posts £33.4m deficit for 2024-25 after spending £24.3m on voluntary severance and redundancies. University of Essex posts £22.1m loss after spending £10.8m on severance. Latest round-up from @patrickjack.bsky.social: www.timeshighereducation.com/news/cardiff...

I think we've found a worse "first date" movie than the time I went to a screening of "The End of Evangelion" and the couple (genuinely, I swear that I am not making this up) going in ahead of me said "Yeah, I think it's one of those films where the cat turns into a bus".

Ahead of #Senedd26 @jaclarner.bsky.social joined the BBC's Chris Mason in #Pontypridd to discuss the big shifts in Welsh politics that suggest a century of electoral dominance by the Labour Party is being challenged by Reform UK and Plaid Cymru, who are battling to top the polls in #Wales.

Written a short explainer on one of the most common and avoidable errors in election analysis at the moment: building conclusions on how voters are moving from vote change. Share it with anyone who needs to see it, which includes an alarming number of people in Westminster.

Worth a listen. The FM seems to be trying to use the electoral threat of Plaid (‘seperatists’) to generate leverage for the Welsh govt in dealing with the UK govt so as to ensure that it treats Wales ‘fairly’ in those areas in which it has *already* refused to act (rail, justice, crown estate) 1/

On Monday, Conservative MS James Evans did something a bit odd. Eagle eyed viewers of his Facebook page noticed that, at 1.16pm, he removed the words "Welsh Conservatives" from a post attacking Labour and Plaid Cymru.

mad king moment from the PBS Newshour correspondent

So she had a pulse. That’s what the doctor on the scene wanted to check. She wasn’t breathing, but she had a pulse. He could have started CPR right away. Instead ICE barred the doctor from attending her and waited 15 mins for EMT to get to her.

BREAKING: Explosive new poll for ITV Cymru Wales puts Plaid Cymru surging ahead of Reform UK in May’s Welsh elections. Plaid 37% Reform 23% Greens 13% Labour 10% Tories 10% Lib Dems 5% Plaid could form majority with Greens on this basis, with Labour out of govt for first time since devolution.

My scheming vizier when I start to cough after taking a swig of wine from my goblet

Not only should the govt ban Twitter, it should ban all foreign owned and controlled social media. I'll see you all on OnlyFans!

politicians shouldn't swear it sets a bad example for the kids orphaned by ice agents

Allow me to translate: “it’s okay to kill these people because they’re queers”

Amazing record for the FIFA

As I told @kattenbarge.bsky.social (who has been doing absolutely incredible reporting on image-based abuse for years) last June, "X is going to continue to be one of the worst offenders and probably one of the pioneers of horrible ways to hurt women.” spitfirenews.com/p/grok-tribu...

Caerffili - featuring our very own @jaclarner.bsky.social! Blwyddyn newydd dda! www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Today is the last day that you can repost this image

LANCET: interacting with ragebait posters all day dramatically improves life and general outlook

Extremely funny to call the pope “holier-than-thou”

The amount of time devoted to covering Reform UK by TV broadcasters would appear to give the party led by Nigel Farage a significant advantage over Plaid Cymru in terms of exposure in the run-up to next May’s Senedd election ✍️Martin Shipton

Hate incidents, already estimated to be massively under-reported due to lack of follow through from the police, will now have zero data collected on them. Awful for victims, awful for research, perfect for the far right this government thinks they can appeal to. Always think: whose "common sense"?

CIA Realizes It’s Been Using Black Highlighters All These Year theonion.com/cia-realizes...

🚨 NEW BLOG Labour have won every election in Wales for 100 years, but they are on track to (badly) lose the 2026 Senedd election - why? @jaclarner.bsky.social and I have looked at new data, which shows how support is shifting within (not between) Wales's blocs! blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/thinking-wal...

Having heard of Andrew Doyle's new (allegedly) non-fiction The End of Woke, it's struck me that there really needs to be a Betteridge's law of headlines for political theory, like if a book is titled "The End of X", X probably hasn't ended. (see also Bell 1960, Fukuyama 1992)