65 per cent of Britons are owner-occupiers. General elections are won in the Midlands. Most people have a middle class occupation. The United Kingdom's comparative advantage is in services. These aren't facts that Philip Gould invented in order to make Labour feel sad.

I know it's only a PCC election with low turnout but 11% for a party that happily accepts neo-Nazis as members is really bad.

lots to learn on "list of dog sports"

Old Catton (Norfolk) Council By-Election Result: 🌳 CON: 34.6% (+8.5) 🌍 GRN: 32.7% (+14.0) ➡️ RFM: 19.9% (-10.1) 🌹 LAB: 5.2% (-10.6) 🔶 LDM: 3.6% (-5.6) ◼️ RES: 3.5% (New) 🎩 MRLP: 0.5% (New) Conservative GAIN from Reform UK. Changes w/ 2026.

Norfolk Police & Crime Commissioner By-Election Result: ➡️ RFM: 26.7% (New) 🌳 CON: 15.0% (-18.9) 🌍 GRN: 13.8% (-2.0) 🙋 Ind: 13.4% (New) 🌹 LAB: 11.6% (-23.6) ◼️ RES: 10.9% (New) 🔶 LDM: 8.6% (-6.5) Reform UK GAIN from Labour. Changes w/ 2024.

💥 NEW EVENT 💥 📆 On Monday, Andy Burnham will become UK Prime Minister 🤔 But will he be able to deliver the type of change the country expects? Find out what @anandmenon.bsky.social, @jillongovt.bsky.social, @jdportes.bsky.social & @robfordmancs.bsky.social think 🔗 ukandeu.ac.uk/events/ukice...

…and filmed the whole operation with an aerial drone, as @ralfraths.bsky.social correctly pointed out.

Can the Bin win? 🗑️ Professor Paul Whiteley's latest The Conversation article examines the upcoming Clacton by-election. While a Count Binface victory is a bit of long shot, it does not seem beyond the realm of possibility. theconversation.com/could-count-...

Fun, and I think right from @robertshrimsley.bsky.social on why there won't be an early election:

My favourite stories are "there's a weird bit of government you've never heard of doing something important". This is one of them.

Sir Keir Starmer announces his retirement peerages, a list of 26: Sir Sadiq Khan, June Sarpong, and the fired Sir Chris Wormald. www.gov.uk/government/n...

To me, the big picture problem here is that it sets Labour back on the same failed course as 2024 to 2026, of offering nothing to social liberals but going “don’t worry. Can I interest you in some failed economics instead?”

Good thread, this. Would add: just as one attraction of Lawson to Thatcher was that he had no parliamentary base, having beat up a number of MPs when he was at the Spectator and spent v little time on the backbenches, that Shabana is not a goer among members is a good thing if you’re Andy.

Or much of a drop in public support. Fascinating example of elite consensus switching despite popular opinion.

Starmer and Reeves' legacy is stabilisation without a strategy. My unsolicited advice to Andy Burnham and the new Chancellor. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Useful chart. Shows - Low earners have substantially improved relative position since mid-2000 - decent wage growth for all recently -but only just recovered to pre-GFC/pre-pandemic levels. - no obvious correlation with immigration except that recent high immigration accompanied real wage growth

If only there had been some sign that parking the bus for 35 minutes wouldn’t work against these guys

I think this letter from Anneliese Dodds and Sean Woodcock is spot on. Unfortunately the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act didn't include a mechanism to resolve disputes and advance devolution where local authorities could not agree. That should be rectified.

I think if you’re the CEO of an extremely politically exposed firm in the public eye and you agree to take this kind of pay increase at this moment, you’re essentially demonstrating that you are not up to the job.

Almost like they’re daring a Burnham government to take action

“grandpa rambles about random bullshit in prime time” yeah I’m sure this is going to fix his polling problem

In 1964 and 2024 Labour got fewer votes than in 1959 and 2019.... And in 2001/2005 fewer votes than in 1992...

Once you start mass removal of citizenship on political grounds you've stopped functioning as a viable democratic state. But that was always where this agenda was heading.

Excellent use of that little-known statistical concept, "the arsehole coefficient".

- Why have 59% of 2024 Labour voters abandoned the party? - What do different Labour groups think of Burnham? - How solid is Reform UK's rise? - Who likes Kemi Badenoch? - What's driving support for parties from the Greens to Restore? These questions - and more - covered by our new big voter study:

My brother is an anesthesiologist - letting me near that job is in no one’s interest

"First Past the Post has now become a chaos multiplier."

Well, this is a hell of a tale:

I think about this sometimes. The population of London in 1550 was about 80,000, which is what Burnley is now.

(4/4). But politically one key advantage. As HO source implies, drives wedge between those who are (or claim to be) worried about benefit access & those who want "remigration", whose primary motivation is racism and ethnonationalism. The reaction to this will therefore be revealing.. (4/4)

First & foremost this would remove the main principled objection to the changes - retrospectively changing rules to (at best) keep people who came here legally with 5 year path to settlement in insecure visa status for up to 15 years - and for many effective deportation/remigration. (2/4)

Home Office floating "compromise" on "earned settlement" reforms - settlement/ILR after 5 years, but no access to benefits until 10 years. Some thoughts..(1/4) www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/...

The movie holds up. As does this great anecdote courtesy of Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum.

This piece on the "load-bearing internet people" and how AI-code writing is overwhelming the web's unheralded maintainers by @samlearner.bsky.social is absolutely terrific: brilliantly accessible without being patronising:

Yesterday, as a personal project, I put out a UK poll tracker: pollingpolis.co.uk It has UK Voting Intention, Best PM, Net Approval and Vote by 2024 Vote, Region and Age. A quick tour of how it works 🧵

oh my god and I thought Andy Burnham was a shoo-in

England's perfect quarterfinal. Euro 2021 vs Ukraine in Rome set to Nessun Dorma in the BBC montage youtu.be/3Jymfwj5WT4?...

Hello! Outside of my work at @thinklabour.bsky.social, I’ve been squirrelling away at a polling aggregator. This is www.pollingpolis.co.uk! It has all the usual stuff but, crucially, also has a wee view for Age, Gender and Past Vote, plus much more for customising and sifting through. Have fun!

Only just seen this Oh no no this is so bad www.walesonline.co.uk/news/politic...

When @molliesimpson.bsky.social started reporting on the renamed Bolton University two years ago, I had *no idea* it would turn into one of the biggest scandals in the history of UK higher education. Proper, proper reporting of the kind that a functioning society relies upon.

This evening’s view

Congratulations to Jane Green, Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College and Professor of Political Science and British Politics at the University of Oxford, on being awarded an Honorary Fellowship by the Market Research Society (MRS). Read more: buff.ly/awmJ4OQ

I did it I wrote the article wish me luck Lionel Messi is the GOAT, Ronaldo is not, why just about every statistical analyst agress www.expectinggoals.com/p/messi-rona...

This is the nuanced point about whipping: the problem is often with the leadership, not the whips. A good whipping operation tells No10 "this issue is a real problem, that idea won't fly". It's very rarely about telling MPs to vote one way "or else".

I’m writing about this for @davehillonlondon.bsky.social - hope to get it done today. This by-election has been a wild ride, and it’s also where I live.

Rounding up some translations of Count Binface that have been appearing in foreign press 🇷🇴 Romanian: Contele Tomberonez 🇫🇷 French: Comte Tête-de-Poubelle (bin-head, more accurate than bin-face) 🇮🇹 Italian: Conte Faccia-da-Bidone 🇪🇸 Spanish: "un hombre con un cubo de basura en la cabeza" (!) Cont...

Do you wonder about how women in the UK are known to be ‘more traditionalist’ and yet vote more progressive? Well, wonder no more! @cerifowler.bsky.social and I have a new paper in @electoralstudies.bsky.social on how this supposed paradox is a measurement artefact 1/ 8

An additional detail in "what on earth is going on in Reform?" Is that, whilst not winnable, the Greater Manchester mayoralty is a good opportunity to shore up their voters in council areas and gather data for their targets in 2029. Now, they're going to be splitting their focus.

So apparently “anti-establishment” politics now means defending the right of wealthy aristocratic families to make huge undeclared political donations, while “the establishment” is anyone who asks questions about this