This is a big problem. If the last information people receive is always “numbers went up” because “numbers went down” is never reported we shouldn’t be surprised that perceptions about immigration end up so skewed. Media should take some responsibility here - this is a salient and polarising issue.

New publication out and open access at @poqjournal.bsky.social with the legendary @jaclarner.bsky.social! How does support for the UK monarchy change over the lifespan or differ between cohorts? 🧵 (1/x) doi.org/10.1093/poq/...

good morning everyone, Mondays are hard, would you like a thread of the most expensive house currently on Rightmove for every English county? here's a thread of the most expensive house currently on rightmove for every English (ceremonial) county. we'll be going alphabetically

Calling all PhD students and Early Career Researchers in European Studies Join us for this year’s Graduate Forum Doctoral Training Academy (DTA), taking place on Sunday 6 September at Charles University, Prague Registration Opens July 1st #UACES2026 #DoctoralTrainingAcademy #EuropeanStudies

Life goals

The headline should have read “Doku criticised by one person, who has since basically retracted that attack, while being backed by many, many others”. But it didn’t. (I suppose we should be grateful it didn’t say ‘slammed’.) www.bbc.co.uk/sport/footba...

This story currently leads BBC Scotland. But down here in London you have to scroll all the way down past the London news, the World Cup, whatever the BBC calls its Reels equivalent, more World Cup, weekend picks and 'lazy summer recipes' to the 'around the UK' to see it

With the winner seemingly in little doubt, the betting interest in Makerfield lies elsewhere.

Come join us next Tuesday for new analysis on how Wales has changed in the 10 years since the Eu Referendum 👇

Now, these times can’t both be right. (Don’t worry: of course neither of them was.) #EPSS2026

"Why adopting Reform-lite rhetoric or intensifying enforcement measures rarely resolves the political problem for centre-left parties: the goalposts constantly move because the politics is not designed to produce resolution. It is designed to sustain a permanent sense of crisis and cultural threat."

Planning to design and analyse a survey despite not having taken a class like mine below on Designing & Analysing Surveys? You’re the social science equivalent of those people who need rescuing by helicopter from Snowdon having gone up in flip flops with only a light sweater and a bag of Maltesers.

What happens when you ask an AI chatbot for political information? In experiments with ChatGPT, Grok, and DeepSeek, we show that even implicit demographic and ideological cues embedded in AI chats shape the news and frames users receive. Study here: osf.io/preprints/so... @zachdickson.bsky.social

Jobs!

No such thing as the graveyard slot at @epssnet.bsky.social -- relentlessly high quality from start to finish -- so do come along to our panel at 3.20 on Saturday. It's all about attitudes to minority groups. (Well, our paper isn't really, but it is pivotal to the survival of liberal democracy.)

Kilmeade and Mullin on Ireland.

Is it the phones? New NBER WP this morning with Zeke Hooper: we estimate the diffusion of the iPhone explains 33–52% of the decline in US births from 2007–2011. #econsky🧵 www.nber.org/papers/w35310

🚨 What happens with voters when politicians use simpler language? New @thejop.bsky.social paper with @rsenninger.bsky.social: simple language changes not just what citizens understand, but who they think politicians are. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Just need everyone to know that the Belgium men's soccer team has new jerseys based on the art of Rene Magritte and this is the official photo shoot

"The degree did not fully insulate [graduates] from a bad jobs market. It reduced their exposure by about a third — which is remarkable, and the key lesson to hold on to in this discussion. A degree is often worth most when the market is worst: it helps you most exactly when you need it most."

The key takeaway: accommodating the radical right raised the salience of immigration and shifted perceptions of Labour's position, but had *no* positive effect on its electoral standing.

Every crime in which an ethnic or cultural minority is the perpetrator used to justify repression or worse of minorities. Every crime in which a minority is the victim used to argue for the idea that ethnic diversity is inherently unstable and should be reduced or eradicated.

Post-doctoral Researcher and Lecturer in Political Science #ECPRMemberJobs 🎓 PhD in Political Science or related field 🏫 University of Lucerne ⌛ Sun 7 June buff.ly/SE3xxPu #PolSciJobs #PoliSky #AcademicSky

Judging by my facial expression here, I can only assume I’d just seen the “five minutes left” warning.

We are pleased to share that the report from our 2026 Local Elections event is now available The report brings together key insights and discussion points from the event, focusing on the evolving dynamics of local elections and their broader implications See the report here: poal.co.uk/events/

Cities are central to how people experience politics. So what makes effective urban leaders? Teaching fellow Max Stafford explores this in his new @bloomsburyacademic.bsky.social book Strong Mayors and Leadership Capital w/ fresh data & case studies www.bloomsbury.com/uk/strong-ma... #polisky #pasky

BLOG POST: why I think the measurement of disproportionality in mixed member systems is wrong, and what to do about it www.chrishanretty.co.uk/posts/mixed_...

Basically, Burnham has become - regardless of its accuracy - the image of "what you think Labour should be". Put into practice, that can obviously go quite wrong, but prior to that, it makes him uniquely attractive to people who should like Labour, but currently feel alienated from it.

This is Manchester we’re talking about!?

Farage's resilience in the face of negative news draws on the fact that almost everyone has made up their mind about him His weakness in broadening Reform's appeal is that almost everyone has made up their mind about him

NEW: What exactly happened in the local and devolved elections in England, Scotland and Wales last week? @persuasionuk.bsky.social has some new polling out today which offers a first glimpse. Thread here on top line findings from each nation. 🧵

People cannot be asked to keep an issue hot, especially not one as complex and at the core technical like climate change, if the top information ecosystem is actively telling them *not* to mobilize. Climate policy is objectively hard, but the climate "backlash" is mostly an elite-driven phenomenon.

Excited to kick off another year of #AAPOR! Sharing some of my slides on a fun little survey experiment for anyone who was at a different panel (or, unfathomably, not attending a polling conference.)

Is impatience killing the government? Some data and some thoughts. @karlpike.bsky.social @philipjcowley.bsky.social and I found a year ago that people expected noticeable improvements in the NHS, schools, housing well within Labour's first parliament. www.politicshome.com/news/article... 1/7

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 New Blog 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 A short piece on how the new Senedd voting system worked! How many votes did it take to win a seat? Was it proportional? Who benefitted? Where did parties win support? And what would it take to win one more seat? If you're interested: blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/thinking-wal... 🧵👇

Llongyfarchiadau mawr i griw @yougov.co.uk ac i griw @itvcymruwales.bsky.social a @walesgovernance.bsky.social sy'n gweithio hefo nhw. Big up the whole YouGov team and the associated ITV/Wales Governance Centre teams! yougov.com/en-gb/articl...

Could Curaçao even do this?

And we have advisors who tell people not to eat bacon sandwiches in case there's a potential embarrassment.

Superb talk, thoroughly enjoyed by everyone (except those who still think that national identity is an ‘unmoved mover’, despite the massing evidence that it’s been heavily politicised across the UK by recent referendum campaigns and results).

We are here at LSE for their 2026 Elections event organised in collaboration with POAL! 🗳️ Throughout the afternoon, top academics on elections and public opinion in the UK will be giving their analysis of what happened on 7 May, what this means for the country, and what happens next.

The Nick Clegg Theory of Everything: since 1970, the delicate stable state of British politics has hinged on the Lib Dems or their previous iterations being the repository of protest votes and doing absolutely nothing with them; once they entered government, all the wheels came off.

At some point on my lifetime we might get a government which recognises that having an entire tier of elected institutions which are just powerless complaints departments for a failing social care system is not a healthy or sensible state of affairs.

National identity reconfigures brain responses from “them” to “us” Briefly priming national versus ethnic identity increases ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation for ethnic out-group faces, a pattern typically reserved for self and in-group processing. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

I spent way too long this weekend correlating 81 census variables with local election results, so you don't have to. Enjoy! datawrapper.dwcdn.net/QQQ3D/7/

In Scotland's system - MMP with a large SMD tier and small-magnitude PR tiers - the SNP has 44% of seats with 38.2 (27.2%) of constituency (list) votes; and the Indy-bloc has 57% of seats with 39% (41%) of constituency (list) votes.

Labour down 30 points in two constituencies declared so far @itvcymruwales.bsky.social @yougov.co.uk MRP looking pretty good at the moment across board on vote shares

Really fascinating and detailed maps on how the population of different bits of Europe has changed over the past 60 years: rural depopulation and the move from east to west being the big stories. correctiv.org/en/europe/20...

When you look at the opinions of Leave voters who have drifted away from Labour in fits and starts over the last couple of decades, two things stand out: i) They now dislike the party pretty intently; ii) They don't *believe* its attempts to move in their ideological direction. Implications?

British politics is resembling the rest of Europe: • Multi-party competition has replaced two-party dominance • Challengers are on the rise, esp. the populist right • Political realignment centres on identity politics (incl Brexit) But FPTP is poorly suited to this fragmentation