BBC today correct Nigel Farage's false claim to Nick Robinson on Political Thinking (13th February 2026) that net migration was only down due to an "exodus" of people leaving the UK since 90% of net migration fall was a fall in immigration. After my 3rd complaint! www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedb...

Excellent thread

As well as being a great scoop by Guardian colleagues, this feels potentially very, very bad for Keir Starmer. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Shabana Mahmood’s migration changes are expected to save just £600m – about 6% of the £10bn the home secretary claimed, according to the government’s own data. FOI data was obtained by @jdportes.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

@au.dk is hiring 3 postdocs (2 yrs) on personality cults & strategic communication in autocracies, led by Jakob Tolstrup & Alexander Baturo. They're looking for profiles with text-as-data, survey experiments and/or Chinese politics experience. Start fall 2026. Looks like a great opportunity!

History is being made

I'm seeing some commentary on how the Hungarian election was lost by JD Vance/Donald Trump/MAGA's toxicity etc. But the fact is, the election was lost by Orban, who was Trump before Trump. His messages have run out of steam and the reality that Fidesz created and started believing in crumbled.

🚨🚨Impossible to understate the importance of #Órban's defeat for European politics and world politics with an utter rejection of #MAGA as a policy style by the Hungarian electorate. The world is already shining with new light after the #Hungarianelections. 🧵 www.politico.eu/article/hung...

“The young are mobilising” says a friend in Hungary. 12 point higher turnout than 2022 at 11 am.

The most useful thread to read before tomorrow!

Happy tenth anniversary to this absolute masterpiece of an opening paragraph in the Daily Telegraph. "We tried trickle-down economics and it just didn't work!" they wailed, "Why must we have so much money?"

They make EVERYTHING worse. Ban, tax, whatever, but acknowledge it already

Do they make *anything* better?

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Candidate nominations for the 2026 English local elections and Senedd Cymru election are now closed. My friends at @democracyclub.org.uk will now start their usual crowdsourcing effort to collect the details of tens of thousands of candidate: join in at candidates.democracyclub.org.uk !

If only there were some people, let’s call them political scientists, who had done research on this topic…

What should have been Labour’s flagship policy but instead came to symbolise the government’s lack of direction has finally come into effect today.

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Why do some killer motorists get short prison sentences? UK road safety laws are letting them off the hook | Sally Kyd

Errors present in 45% of AI generated reports of news stories 🧪 www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/...

Are you an ECR writing your first review? Check out some FAQs put together by @cambup-polsci.cambridge.org on best practices for reviewing articles! These are great tips, especially for RIS, which is a CUP journal 👇 buff.ly/E9B71qG

A recent article in PQ argues for a ‘sortition of candidature’, where parliamentary candidates would be chosen at random from the membership of political parties. But would this work in practice? @philipjcowley.bsky.social, Paul Web & @timbale.bsky.social investigate. tinyurl.com/32fjx99v

I wanted to say something about this but frankly I’ve no words

My excellent colleague @katiedd.bsky.social has just published this remarkable investigation into rampant book banning in a Greater Manchester secondary school library. 193 books including The Da Vinci Code, Twilight, White Teeth and 1984 Graphic Novel www.indexoncensorship.org/2026/03/scho...

This is *extremely* back of the envelope, but in rough terms a million tonnes of fertiliser equates to enough food to feed 50 million people for a year. So if it doesn't get where it needs to be in time, that's a substantial problem.

This racist woman lost a job at Gunster Strategies (quietly) after calling for Deputy Speaker to be banned from parliament - and deported - on grounds of race. White should be shunned by civic orgs that aren't overtly racist. [Leaving her with Britain First+Restore Britain] bsky.app/profile/sund...

These are scary times. Sadly this is what we get from mainstream parties trying to out-right-wing radical right parties (RRPs). These RRP now must be more extreme. Did we warn them it will happen/ yes we did. Did the parties of government listen/ no they did not Are they carrying on/ you betcha

Just had this flagged with me. This is disgusting. If Kemi Badenoch had one ounce of leadership in her, she would condemn this. I don’t want any faux sadness from her or Nick Timothy when one of us is hurt or worse. This is how low the Conservative Party have sunk.

⁉️ Are anti-immigration people really "sexually modern"? No ⁉️ Are people more supportive of anti-immigration platforms when these also include progressive positions on gender and sexuality? Also no I explore these questions w/ 🇬🇧🇩🇪 original survey data (+ a conjoint in 🇩🇪) 👉 osf.io/preprints/so...

In November 1967, even as US soldiers were dying, Lyndon Johnson flew General William Westmoreland home from Vietnam to reassure everyone the war was going well. Westmoreland said the U.S. was winning and “the end was in view”. The war continued for 5 more years & another 42,000 US soldiers died.

I wrote this paper because too many people feel like they’re paying more and getting less from local government. Council tax keeps going up, but the services people actually see: bins, potholes, parks, libraries, street cleaning. Too often feel like they’re getting worse.

Very strong piece, from which a couple of quotes stand out: "The Boris Johnson era was about managing humiliation." "I’m not sure we will be best served if we type ‘Angola’ into ChatGPT and see what comes out.”

Sadiq Khan: "It's Muslims today, who will it be tomorrow? Jewish people? Who the day after, Hindu people? This sort of mono-ethnic, mono-nationalistic view is a carbon copy of President Trump. These guys are pound shop President Trumps, they should be ashamed of themselves."

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Join our special event with @mileendinstitute.bsky.social on "Inequality & the Future of London" on Mar 26. With @rupahuq.bsky.social, @mikebrewerecon.bsky.social, @sachahilhorst.bsky.social and Joe Fyans. Sign up for free tickets:

The call for papers for #EPOP2026 in Liverpool (17–19 September) is now open! We welcome submissions across all areas of research on elections, public opinion and parties. Deadline: 26 April Submit your proposals here: www.liverpool.ac.uk/politics/eve... @polstudiesassoc.bsky.social

This is how to protest.

Where the mental health services help the counter terrorism is to pick up slack?

I wrote a few words

Very happy that this article with Samir Negash and Lorenzo Piccoli has just been accepted at the European Political Science Review. In it we show that "welfare chauvinism" is much more nuanced than many assume.

Reminder that the deadline for nominations for the EPSS Best Book award 2026 is March 31, 2026! The EPSS Best Book Award recognizes an outstanding scholarly contribution to the field of political science. 1/2

The government. Never knowingly on the right side of public opinion.

‘Happy (and safe) shooting!’: chatbots helped researchers plot deadly attacks

Devolution is on Labour's agenda. But the most deprived councils saw funding cut by 31% per person, compared with 16% in the least deprived. The areas most in need of strong institutions are therefore the least equipped to standardise responsibilities. politicalquarterly.org.uk/blog/mayoral...

Absolutely right Again, as with Guardian article, Mahmood's reliance on false/deliberately misleading claims about her "earned settlement" proposals suggests that she knows she can't defend them on the merits, in principle or in practice.

Another day- another lie…

another great time to remind folks that we want to keep our data safe and keep palantir out of the nhs

Wise words as ever, not banging on about a dimension that divides your voters but instead about the one that unites them is weirdly the choice Labour don’t seem to have considered in all this. Despite the fact that it arguably won them the 2024 election.

*PSA Prizes* Nominations open for Dissertation Prizes 2025-26 We invite nominations for dissertations covering: government & public administration; political theory; comparative politics; elections & electoral systems; international relations 📆 Deadline: 6 April 2026 ➡️ Full details