Mad fact... 42% of Labour Prime Ministers have had to fire Peter Mandelson.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the first three episodes of this new podcast from @jlowen.bsky.social at @nestauk.bsky.social.

Sharing in the hope it gets more attention and some clever SpAd nicks one or two ideas.

The market is small but enthusiastic

Where can I get the hat?

Great piece. I do worry about designing the electoral system around current voting patterns (eg bloc politics) because I suspect voting patterns would change under a new electoral system.

A lot has been written about the consequences of electoral fragmentation in Britain - but I want to know your best theory of the causes.

Why now? What happened to Duverger's Law? What makes it possible in the UK but not the US?

Everyone should read this (esp. if you spend a lot of time on this site).

A decision tree guide to political analysis for the cynical

Finally tried this yesterday to see what the fuss was about. The fuss is justified.

I would say most election forecasting in the UK, including MRP, is Bayesian

Interesting. If there’s a meaningful Restore/Advance number, Reform on 23 makes more sense to me.

Where’s the 42/43% from? Are there 3-4 right-wing points in the “Other”?

Fair enough! Surprised and interested by how many people believe these two results are consistent. I am in the minority it seems.

You’re right of course. I just don’t think they would get 29% in *this* specific seat if they were on 23% nationally, based on their baseline and the demographics of the area, etc.

True of course. But the last YouGov MRP projection for G&D had the same combined right share as the by-election result when the national right share was five points higher than it is now.

Lots of sensible points in my replies. My point was just that given the demographics of G&D, given Reform’s baseline, given it’s a by-election, etc. a Reform vote share of 29% feels more consistent with a national vote share of ~30% (other pollsters) than 23% (YouGov). But that’s just my own view.

YouGov are experienced, reputable etc. But personally I don’t see how Reform could be on 23% nationally and win 29% in Gorton and Denton.

Your perseverant honesty on this point is a public service.

There's a weird thing in UK politics.

Labour treats Reform as largely correct on the merits but bad at implementation.

It treats the Greens as wrong on the merits and so good at implementation they will destroy the country.

But that's... the opposite of how their actual likely voters feel?

Looks to me like they only got 1 independent voter. Maybe you're looking at "Can't remember"?

Of course, there is also the meta effect of the poll itself. Does the (narrow) Green lead spur undecideds to vote Green rather than Labour? You can sure the Greens will be shouting about it from the rooftops of Gorton.

Two other dynamics of interest from the poll:

1. A third of voters are undecided, and it looks like they tend to lean towards the Greens.
2. While the Greens have a 2pt lead among all voters, Reform has a 3pt lead among "very likely" voters.

The stronger of these forces could decide the result.

The Workers' Party won 10% of the vote in Gorton and Denton in 2024, but none of those voters are in the poll from Omnisis.

How many of them will vote? Probably not many.
Who will they vote for? Probably the Greens.

But we can't be sure! In a race this tight, it's a massive unknown.

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These charts show how Trump is isolating the US on the world stage

The untold story that is told constantly and isn’t really true

Macron desperately needs Trump to get interested in Réunion.

It's a good question why there is such a difference between pollsters. But whoever told the journalist that it's because "some pollsters do not include the Greens as an option in their surveys" is chatting nonsense.

Which polling company does not include the Greens as an option?!?

Which models include reassigning the answers of previous Labour voters?!?

Please just ASK THE POLLING COMPANIES why there is a difference!

Fascinating as usual from my colleague @jamesbreckwoldt.bsky.social. Come for the Simpsons memes, stay for the lesson in US political realignment.

See also: fulsome apologies