Indeed. A thing which is deeply weird about the government at the moment is how they will do something where you go 'makes sense, this will help you turn things around' and then they will immediately relapse. It's like they're trying and failing to quit smoking.

“The experiment nuances it by showing that the SD could have won support for a pro-immigration platform, if they had moralised their messaging. The study shows that by framing pro-immigration policies as a matter of what is ‘fair’ and ‘decent’, they can compete with anti-immigration messages.”

Imagine you're in a weird romcom where Paul Hollywood is your rival. Do you go "let's have a bread baking competition" or do you emphasise your own relative strengths? Because that in short has been the central problem with the traditional two's approach to anti-immigration voters and Reform UK.

Oh look, Labour has spent months targeting the wrong voters.

Going to start calling other things that are exclusively British 'European-style'. European-style 'Greggs' European-style 'House of Lords' European-style 'red telephone boxes' European-style 'Doctor Who' European-style 'Isthmian Premier Division' European-style 'Kent'

Here, @timbale.bsky.social does a great job spelling out why virtually every expert on the far right (that I have heard from) rejects “hard right” as terminology for these parties and their ideology. Editors should really stop this nonsense.

For SD Parties this means that as long as their program is economically to the left, it does not matter much to working class voters what it includes culturally e.g. on immigration. In contrast, educated middle class voters will punish a program for being less culturally progressive.

What Abou-Chadi et al. show here is not just that conservative migration positions won't help social-democrats to attract voters, but also that left positions on retirement (that is allowing for early retirement) make social-democrats most attractive (and right positions make them less attracitve).

Just received news that 27 people have been arrested in Parliament Square under the Terrorism Act 2000 for holding signs saying "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action". This is real police state behaviour.

This is profoundly illiberal. Yvette Cooper has always had authoritarian tendencies but this is outrageous.

The fault and the blame for the damage that may be done by vote splitting lies with those parties that, for completely self-serving reasons, have failed to abolish the disgraceful FPTP system, not those refusing to be cowed into submission. If you're worried about the threat, give us real democracy!

This quite dramatic poll is: Best ever Scottish Green share polled on all votes (big pinch of salt); not best seat projection due to SNP pressure on proportionality Worst Conservative share I've ever seen on all votes; catastrophically dire seat projection, first time I've had them single-digits.

This why first-past-the-post is such a terrible system for electing a government. Full tortuous analogy in my latest Guardian article: www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

🚨 Are young women becoming more left-wing & young men more right-wing? We analyzed 32 European countries (1990–2023). 📊 Some show growing gaps—others don’t. 📊 Gaps tend to be bigger where gender equality is higher. w/ @hudde.bsky.social 👉 doi.org/10.1093/esr/...

We deserves change. Glasgow deserves change. I’m fighting to be Glasgow’s newest socialist Green MSP, but I’m not fighting alone. Vote Ellie #1 Vote Iris #2 Vote Seonad #3 We have a future to fight for 💚 Follow @radicalglagreens.bsky.social for updates.

Given ongoing discussion over where Reform UK supporters in Scotland are switching from, he's a Sankey diagram showing voter flows between the 2019 GE, 2024 GE, and constituency voting intention for the 2026 SE. 84% of Reform UK voters have switched from the Tories or Labour, just 12% from the SNP.

🧵 Where do Reform votes come from? Following Reform's chunky share in Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, it's worth looking at where those votes come from. We're not getting much polling in Scotland lately, but we can check the most recent Survation and Norstat (2nd - 5th and 27th - 30th of May)...

Alongside my Holyrood tracker, I've been maintaining a tracker of independence support across all polls. Given a degree of commentary will be given to the topic in the wake of today's by-election, here's an update: We have the first, v. narrow, Yes lead since late 2020: Yes: 46.2% No: 45.6% DK: 8%

‘Glasgow special’ but two unelected reps, 2 Labour and one rep from a party that has 1 cllr and is about to lose both its seats. As usual no greens … despite us being Glasgow’s 3rd party and polling to increase representation on all levels. Explain to me how it’s not bias?

Not often that one one of my students runs for Parliament (again)! I can confirm Iris will be a great addition to the Holyrood benches

Scotland would only need one little reform to get rid of most disproportionality - move from regional lists to one national list, just like New Zealand does. New Zealand even has now a higher share of constituency seats in parliament than Scotland does. Still allows for very proportional outcomes.

(The other advantage to moving to a pure PR system is ending the five-yearly manufactured outrage about "tactical list voting" from the same people who are peculiarly quiet about a UK voting system that, by making most votes as worthwhile dropping into a shredder as a ballot box, is rife with it)

The BBS position on PR is well known (more proportional please), and as a reminder for fellow nerds, my detailed analysis articles for individual polls contain a chart of alternative scenarios. Note the difference for the two (Pure List and Scandi) with no FPTP element in the most recent poll.

Yes

This is a mistake parties make a lot - if you want to win voters from another party, you can't do it on their territory, simply because they have the advantage. The key is finding what those potential defectors believe you are better for and working towards that.

While Labour's attempts to appeal to Reform UK voters have not gone unnoticed, just 4% say they are likely to consider voting Labour 2024 Ref: 56% feel Labour are appealing to them / 4% would consider voting Labour 2024 Lab: 48% / 70% 2024 Con: 36% / 9% 2024 LD: 32% / 38% 2024 Grn: 12% / 24%

It's been a great pleasure to give this year's MacKenzie Lecture @uofglasgow.bsky.social presenting my book How the Radical Right Has Changed Capitalism & Welfare in Europe and the USA. Many thanks to the PIR department, especially to @drjparker.bsky.social, for the invitation and dinner afterwards

"Owners of 2nd homes in Wales are having to sell up.That’s no disaster:it’s a godsend" "Council tax hikes on holiday homes aren’t ‘anti-English’ or detrimental 2 tourism.This is about preserving embattled communities" www.theguardian.com/commentisfre... Spot-on summary- @willhaycardiff.bsky.social

I would remind folk (not Dylan) with Westminster Myopia that "the next election isn't until 2029" is untrue. Scotland and Wales are voting for our national parliaments next year. Labour polling for both has taken a dire turn. Labour being 2029 recoverable requires 2026 not to be a disaster.

For the life of me, I cannot understand why center-left leaders in Western Europe continue to make the same mistakes, with disastrous consequences for themselves and their country. Even if they don’t care about the latter, they are supposed to care about their own political future.

In short, Starmer has taken a massive hit among Labour voters, for no gain elsewhere, while boosting Farage's popularity, including doubling his ceiling among Labour voters. I.e., the political scientists were right, Morgan McSweeney was horrendously wrong.

Yes, it’s awful politics all round. But it also…makes no sense. Reform is the door? And the hand is the SNP’s… so where are the voters or Scottish Labour?

Think this is (yet another) illustration of the government's overarching problem. There is no big picture project so it is essentially led by a combination of the polls and 'don't do anything that comes with too high a cost' (in of itself about being governed by the polls).

Fantastic day 1 of @scotvoting.bsky.social @ccc-research.bsky.social Scottish politics conference.

Starmer combines 1990s retro-nativism (migrants take jobs away) with the talking points of the populist radical right in the last 10 years ("taking back control"). As a political scientist, I know this will weaken Labour and strengthen Reform. As an immigrant this was just chilling to listen to.

No

Systematic peer-reviewed assessment showing the fundamental flaws of the Cass Review. Many in politics and beyond have used the Cass report to justify the erosion of gender-affirming care. This study is a litmus test for those who claim to "follow the science" on the topic.

X blocked access to İstanbul's mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu’s account within Turkey following a court order.

If anything this is even more mental than the Senedd one

This is so so so so so so stupid. Just utterly baffled why this party is completely unwilling to listen to all the experts going “there’s no way this will work”

Such an excellent analogy

Hey lads, here's ,like, a wild idea... What if parties got seats in proportion to the votes they win?

For 20 years, Lab and Con defenders of FPP have argued "keep FPP to keep the radical right out of power". On this week's results, the arg now looks more like "drop FPP if you want to keep the radical right out of power"

Ah, another year, another set of English "Mayors" (functionally Provincial Governors, or at least Provincial Glorified Housing and Transport Ministers) elected on lower turnout than even the lowest Scottish Council, whilst some still try to sell the idea here as one of increasing participation.

CHP district rallies continue in #İstanbul. Thousands gather in Başakşehir for tonight’s gathering.

Doctors have labelled the Supreme Court gender ruling "scientifically illiterate", and naturally gender critics have now put this expert medical opinion down to "indoctrination" www.thetimes.com/article/68b2...