Not my survey (!) but grateful to the POLPOP team for collecting the data that allowed us to look at how well politicians understand the importance of different issues to voters

fwiw it’s been about six weeks since Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras who had been convicted of trafficking drugs into the US

There are lots of things you could say about this Government, but not being on the side of unionised workers is pretty out there to be honest. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

Denmark lost more troops per capita in the post 9/11 war on Afghanistan. Saying they “are not a good ally” because they won’t surrender their territories to the US is lunacy. We are betraying our allies to satisfy the whims of a would-be Emperor for whom the US is not enough.

🔔Job Alert 🔔 Thrilled to share that @stefaniebailer.bsky.social and I have been awarded 1.5 million CHF in SNSF funding for our new project: “Electoral choice: Which role does legislators’ quality play?” We’re recruiting 1 postdoc and 2 PhD candidates to join us in Basel and Geneva!

My favourite of my own papers is on this exact topic (should be free to read) www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

A post likely to be printed off and hung up in Whips Offices 👇

Well quite www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Great culture can save lives. Literally. Amazing letter in today’s @thetimes.com about Tom Stoppard

I imagine the obits will talk about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, Leopoldstadt and Shakespeare in Love, God help us. But for my money Arcadia was his best play: elegant, profound, intelligent, humane and deeply moving. There really was no one else operating at his level.

Super new research by the very talented @joshgoddard98.bsky.social on the link between housing tenure and voting 👇

Looking forward to a much briefed bumper hamper of politics? No, not the Budget, The British General Election of 2024! We had a wonderful all star launch event in London last night, with representatives of all five Britain-wide parties, and now I have a special launch gift for you...read on! 1/?

In my inbox a conference invitation: “Battle for the soul of Europe” with a session titled ‘Remigration’ and speakers like Melanie Philips, Vaclav Klaus, Matt Goodwin and Viktor Orban’s political director. I’ll think I’ll pass thanks…

I wish I didn’t have to share this. But the BBC has decided to censor my first Reith Lecture. They deleted the line in which I describe Donald Trump as “the most openly corrupt president in American history.” /1

Given the PM loves a flag-waving presser about something patriotic, i don't get why govt is not now in full 'launch an inquiry on foreign interference in UK politics' given this week we've had Nathan Gill jailed over Russian bribes, Chinese spies again, & this www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...

This is one of the changes in the UK media landscape that should be more remarked on: the fact that being a very open, proud, outright racist is no longer a bar to being a pundit on some TV stations (in this case GBN and Talk TV).

Typically entertaining piece with a review of the research set out here: bsky.app/profile/turn...

Several recent studies have found that politicians aren't very good at estimating public support for policies. But we have little idea about whether politicians are good at knowing which issues are more important to voters. Our new publication has a first go at answering this question rdcu.be/eQGm4

www.dutchnews.nl/2025/11/danc... Fascinating read on the rightward turn of the VVD. Why have so many liberal parties headed to the right culturally in recent years (Ciudadanos, FDP)? Especially when it doesn’t seem to have worked out well for any of them.

Sharp as ever from @philipjcowley.bsky.social but delightfully with added sass this week

“The irony is that where a trans kid can’t access a hormone blocker, an intersex child is operated on.” - Holly Greenberry-Pullen, intersex advocate.

Good on Ed Davey – speaking up for and defending Britain’s institutions in the face of nefarious actors. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

The most ridiculous #traitors thing is Stephen Fry and David Olusoga mutually going “The traitors are playing a really clever game and you’re really clever so it must be you” without thinking “I’m really bad at this game & I’m conventionally clever so maybe a different kind of clever is traitorous”

If David Olusoga gets this wrong tonight, will it be another nail in the coffin of academia’s reputation?

During the reshuffle I read a lot of column inches about how Shabana Mahmood had impressed at Justice by making quick decisions and not generating negative headlines. Given what's transpired about mistakes with releasing prisoners, I wonder if that viewpoint is still widely shared?

BBC News bulletins leading on the story of an Algerian man being mistakenly released by the prison service. Funnily enough I don't remember these cases ever leading the bulletins when an average of ten prisoners were mistakenly released a month in the final year of the last Government

Notable in today's YouGov that the centre/left bloc - Lab/Green/LD/SNP are on 54%. With Reform/Tories on 43%. That's the biggest differential in a long time. I think useful to track blocs given instability between parties at the moment.

Stephen Bush on the extraordinary draft legislation which Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, Matt Vickers, Katie Lam and backbench colleagues have proposed in parliament It is a proposal that would seek to deport around 5% of the resident population, including over a quarter of a million with ILR

Perhaps a timely reminder of the work @drjennings.bsky.social & I did with Gerry Stoker showing that politicians in power are generally aware of people's low trust in the political system but unwilling to invest effort in trying to alleviate it doi.org/10.1177/0032...

"You can legislate all you want, but these systems won't work unless people trust them" The information commissioner, John Edwards, today told MPs on the science, innovation & tech committee that the government's digital ID policy won't work without public trust, reports @matildamartin.bsky.social

It's a remarkably persistent idea that loads of remaining Tories are just waiting to make the switch, but it's just not true. Just 1 in 8 still loyal Tories have an outright positive view of the Lib Dems or would consider voting for them. They're ideologically miles away from the Lib Dems.

It's a day ending in a 'y' which means a French Prime Minister has resigned 🤷‍♂️

Kind of feels like a big deal that a Reform/Brexit Party former MEP has been convicted of taking bribes to promote Russian interests in Ukraine, and it feels like a bigger deal that this isn’t being treated as the major scandal that it clearly is.

All is not well in ‘Your Party’. Note the absence of Zarah Sultana’s name at the bottom of this statement

Very thought provoking article from Steve Richards arguing that Starmer over-corrected after Hartlepool www.newstatesman.com/uncategorize...

[me, a journalist who spends all day every day on a social media app where the discovery algorithm is personally controlled by its owner, captain birdseye] you know, a lot of people are talking about fish fingers, we should probably cover that

Elon Musk openly called for violence on our streets yesterday. I hope politicians from all parties come together to condemn his deeply dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric. Britain must stand united against this clear attempt to undermine our democracy.

As it happens I think it's downstream of Labour in opposition, which took the view that public and press opinion were immutable and so trying to win arguments, rather than side-step them, was futile. But if it that was true in opposition it certainly isn't true in government.

We need to see more of this from progressive MPs.

Govt should take this message seriously. The far right, backed by the world's richest man, is actively stoking racial & political violence. Staying quiet, flattering them, saying "we hear you" won't work. Stand up for decency, for respect, for the best of modern Britain or watch those things burn

It is absurd how little consequence we are letting Musk’s rhetoric and politics have. Every time we ignore it and pretend it will go away it gets worse.

Perhaps the British media might like to give this story some prominence

If he’d help off on the reshuffle for a few days he could have made David Lammy Ambassador to the US

More extraordinary still is the sanitising of Kirk's politics. Kirk was - and this is just a straightforwardly factual statement - a far right activist. And here's a former British Prime Minister not merely mourning his death or condemning his murder but actively *praising* his politics.

Honestly, it is absurd to publish a league table with confidence intervals so wide that a single trust could be in either the top 10 or bottom 10

Interigued to hear Deputy Leadership contenders and others accuse Labour leadership of being too London centric. They're not exactly appealing to London voters by chasing after Farage! But perhaps the accusation is that a London leadership has a warped sense of how to win votes outside the capital