It just straightforwardly *insane* how much political chatter in the United Kingdom is about the next general election, an event that is a long way in the future, and how basically none of it is about 'uh, this policy agenda doesn't look adequate to the scale of the inherited problem'.

Unclear how far back this would go and if would attack settled status for EU nationals. But clear that we must oppose this because mass deportation is a crime and an attack on basic rights rather than "unworkable" or "bad for the economy". It is your family, friends and neighbours he's coming for

An actual quote from the Secretary of State for Business and Trade Too often people go to university to ‘explore research and knowledge’ Look forward to Wes S saying 'too often people go to hospital to have operations' or Heidi Alexander saying 'too often people go to the station to catch a train'

Lol. How well did the last govt insulting load-bearing parts of their electoral coalition work out for them? Like they watched what the Lib Dems did to the home counties and wondered what it'd be like if the Greens did that to the two dozen largest university towns.

I've been wrangling some data on UK All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) recently, and I feel compelled to share my highly scientific ranking of APPG Vibes... 🧵

I'm sorry, worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable permission to my voice and likeness? For what now? In any manner for any purpose??? This is in academia/.edu's new ToS, which you're prompted to agree to on login. Anyway I'll be jumping ship. You can find my stuff at hcommons.org.

Can large language models stand in for human participants? Many social scientists seem to think so, and are already using "silicon samples" in research. One problem: depending on the analytic decisions made, you can basically get these samples to show any effect you want. THREAD 🧵

If anyone is attending Labour conference and feeling mischievous it might be interesting to ask Glasman his views on the role of Paul Marshall in public life.

The Royal Society should centre not simply "his decision to address Robinson's rally" but esp his call for pre-emptive political violence [against left/liberal politicians, against migrants + minorities] given the inevitability of violence + his accusation of 'cowardice' of those who challenged that

Big week for me and the team as "The British General Election of 2024" has now gone into production. The definitive book of last year's landmark election will be hitting stores later this autumn, and is available to pre-order right now! Here's the Amazon page: www.amazon.co.uk/British-Gene...

Latest ITV BarnCymru 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 poll confirms trend seen over last 6 months - neck and neck race between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK for largest party, with Labour falling to even more distant third. Evidence growing of distinct realignment in Wales 🧵

A reminder to submit your abstracts! We'd love your papers on gender + candidates, vote choices, turnout, the role of feminist + LGBT issues, gender gaps etc.!

Lovely bit of public service

Musk has made the most overt call for violence at a political rally since William Craig called for the liquidation of the Catholic enemies and opponents of Northern Ireland to a crowd of 50,000 in Belfast for the Ulster Vanguard in 1972 as the Troubles got going www.nytimes.com/1972/03/27/a...

Appears almost thermostatic, which makes me wonder how much this is just driven by immigration sentiment (would be interesting to see the full list of measures!)

The revolution will have an Eton education

It melts my head that X is still used for official Government communications, and, catching up on today's news and the fact we have a foreign billionaire inciting violence on our streets, it's clearer than ever that this should end. I raised this in Parliament last week 👇

Given the context and the crowd, despite Musk’s weasel words, this was a call for violence against the British state, from a foreign national who controls a major propaganda engine, and has engineered it to monetise hate

When Ted Heath sacked Enoch Powell he was acting in the face of a majority in favour. Harold Wilson backed him up and called the speech “evil”. Long past time for Keir and Kemi to do the same.

if they're calling it the Reichstag fire themselves doesn't that sort of give the game away

Mandelson has now lost a government job in four successive decades. Even Churchill didn't manage that.

The Labour government's response to a summer of open racism, including physical attacks and the demonisation of some of its own Cabinet, has been to hide. 'Anti-racism' is something you actually have to do, not something you are. Seriously, why can't people like this hear themselves?

Brilliantly lucid piece from Phil - well worth a read.

will be doing some more general columns for the guardian going forward. this one is on remigration and the evolution of a far-right pipe dream into mainstream discourse. I promise they won’t all be this depressing. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

For some reason, every time my son ends up with milk on his nose (babycinos particularly bad for this), I can't help but say: "That's how we drink it in Belgium. It's called a Belgian dip."

The weird and wonderful history of British voter segmentations: the names, the ideas, the myths! From how "the man on the Clapham omnibus" changed English common law to how "Gail's Voter" helped the Lib Dems gain 64 seats in 2024 to what works well when doing segmentation (and what doesn't)

A very significant day for us as our new birth cohort study is announced, the first for quarter of a century. Big congratulations to colleagues in our @clscohorts.bsky.social for all their hard work in getting this off the ground!

Elon Musk has *personally*posted in favour of the racist remigration agenda of the maximalist racist abusing the Home Secretary with this on X & endlessly posting racist harassment on X This should be a story. It should be a scandal. Musk should have to account for this, in person, in parliament

🚨DATA RELEASE 🚨 The BES team are pleased to announce the release of Wave 30 of the British Election Study Internet Panel. Please follow the link below, and we look forward to seeing your research! www.britishelectionstudy.com/bes-resource...

Vaguely annoyed that I have the same Uniqlo mac as Polanski - albeit mine is mainly for the nursery run

fascinating to watch what used to be known as the centre-right mistake these guys for their median voter

Fascinated that In Our Time is one of the BBC’s most popular podcasts among under 35s. The young people demand three academics and a peer discussing Demosthenes, apparently. And they’re right to do so.

with melvyn bragg retiring, i hope radio 4 take the opportunity to refresh in our time. maybe get rid of the fusty old professors and bring in a few tiktokers

Labour's strategy since the election seems designed to appeal to right-conservative voters. This strategy hasn't worked on its own terms because they have lost the (very few) right-wing voters that they had, while also losing (much) larger numbers of left-wing voters.

🚨 New WP! 📄 "Publish or Procreate: The Effect of Motherhood on Research Performance" (w/ @valentinatartari.bsky.social 👩‍🔬👨‍🔬 We investigate how parenthood affects scientific productivity and impact — and find that the impact is far from equal for mothers and fathers.

Listen if you have tiny kids I'm here to tell you you have *no idea* how many work/social days will be lost to chickenpox in the coming years if you don't get this jab. How many days you will pay for but not use at nursery. Get the jab.

Around a fifth of adolescents experience ‘teen apathy’: a decline in political interest around ages 13–15, and a surprisingly large share of young citizens have their political future decided already at age 17, or in many cases even at age 11 www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

People can feel sympathy for Lucy Connolly over the scale of sentence she got after pleading guilty. But the appeal found her evidence demonstrably not credible on what she knew/did not know about the sentence before her guilty plea. Her media interviews repeat those false claims

Can't wait for the ITV drama about Lucy Connolly, a innocent woman guilty of nothing more than committing the crime of inciting racial hatred.

After a fantastic few years, I'll soon be leaving @qmpoliticsir.bsky.social and the @mileendinstitute.bsky.social. I've been surrounded by inspiring and generous colleagues, had lots of time and freedom to pursue my own research agenda, and had the pleasure of running the Polling London project.

Once, posting at noon used to let you surf the sunrise from New York to LA. Now, European mornings are the only safe window before the cabinet of horror fills the feed

Which jobs do Britons think are overpaid? Most overpaid (of those polled) Male footballers: 93% Company directors: 78% MPs: 76% Bankers: 76% Actors: 57% Barristers: 51% Accountants: 47% Train drivers: 43% Civil servants: 35% Journalists: 34% yougov.co.uk/society/arti...

Best posts on this website tbh

I wonder if anyone has tipped The Orb off that they’re playing at the same festival as Curtis Yarvin, which is akin to them consenting to do Glastonbury alongside Skrewdriver back in the day. And any speaker who doesn’t drop out is complicit in normalising fascism, too.

Re-reading Jonathan Powell's excellent book, 'The New Machiavelli' (skip the first two chapters in which he justifies the framing, they work better as an afterword than a foreword IMO), and it's bleakly funny just how many of the asides could have a jump cut to the current Labour government.

If it's true that Labour wants to fight the next election on the basis of "Look, it's us or the far right", as Macron did, then they're going to have to start explicitly denouncing the far right, as Macron does

Putting these two bits of information next to each other is a real eye-opener. Really shows what an incoherent mess government policy on higher education is, & how badly the government is failing the country by it.

NEW: The public hugely overestimate how many graduates regret going to university and significantly underestimate the importance of higher education to the UK economy. Our new study with @hepi-news.bsky.social also reveals widespread misunderstandings about tuition fees, student loans and more ⬇️ 🧵

As Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo put it: "A city where you can get let go of your child's hand"