Where did the bounce come from? Progressives returning to Labour 🌹 63% of 2024 Labour voters now say they'd vote Labour, up from 50% in June Labour's losses to the Greens (14%→10%) and Lib Dems (13%→7%) have fallen sharply since Burnham took over
Len Metson
@lenmetson.com
PhD candidate @LSEGovernment 📚 Interested in campaigns, applied data science and field experiments 💻 he/him 🌐 lenmetson.com
That doesn't make RCTs "bad" but we could probably rethink how we interpret them with standard estimands. The ATE may not be all that important!
PM resignation watch followed by a heat health alert is peak UK news cycle
One thing I think the focus on block politics underplays are the (small) voters who 'least liked' party are in their 'block'.
PoliticsHome@politicshome.bsky.social · 2mo agoTories willing to back Labour to stop Reform are an issue for Farage, writes @psurridge.bsky.social It happened in 2024, and there were signs of it in Makerfield 'That they might be willing to vote for Labour in some circumstances is an important yet overlooked factor in an evolving party system'
Cannot recommend this documentary enough ! www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/epis...
Storyville - Agent of Happiness
A Storyville documentary that follows Amber and Guna, happiness agents for the government of Bhutan, as they travel the mountainous Himalayas, meeting people and measuring how happy they are.
bbc.co.uk
This was the 2024 result in Makerfield, where Josh Simons is standing down to allow Andy Burnham to return to Parliament. It's going to be really, really tough for Burnham to win it.
This whole by-election will now be about the future PM. Have we ever seen a by-election like it?! It will change the calculations, divert so many resources there, make the choice high stakes. Maybe even a slam dunk result that shows Reform's vulnerabilities. A killer move, if so, for Burnham.
Dylan Difford@dylandifford.bsky.social · 3mo agoNot just is Burnham particularly popular among Labour voters, but in the North West as a whole his favourability ratings are 51% to 29%. Not just net positive, but clearly so. Very rare.
One of the largest drops in nhs waiting lists on record, which no one will now hear about. Opportunity cost from all the leadership turmoil www.england.nhs.uk/2026/05/heal...
NHS England » “Huge moment” as the health service hits 18-week target amid half-a-million waiting list drop
NHS England » “Huge moment” as the health service hits 18-week target amid half-a-million waiting list drop
england.nhs.uk
The local elections in one chart. Labour has been squeezed between the Greens in young wards and Reform in older working-class wards www.economist.com/britain/2026...
Early individual-level survey data from around the local elections 👇 allows us to start understanding what drove the huge LAB (& CON) losses, which the ward-level data we've seen so far just can't tell us
Steve Akehurst@steveakehurst.bsky.social · 3mo agoNationally, this suggests Labour vote disproportionately stayed at home or went to another left party. Massive collapse to Plaid in Wales. Reform turned out an energised base with some switchers on top. Greens also. Lab->Reform exists but not the major part of the picture.
Nationally, this suggests Labour vote disproportionately stayed at home or went to another left party. Massive collapse to Plaid in Wales. Reform turned out an energised base with some switchers on top. Greens also. Lab->Reform exists but not the major part of the picture.
Does anyone know of (/have) individual-level data on "split ballot" voting (i.e. voting for candidates from different parties) in English local elections?
Campaign Lab are hiring for 3 new roles - Great opportunity for anyone from an academic or applied research background who's excited about running RCTs and doing data science with progressive campaigns in the UK! campaignlab.uk/work-with-us/
Work with us - Campaign Lab
We are an experimental, research-driven organisation. Our work includes applied research, pilot projects, and hackdays alongside partnerships with MPs, campaigners and progressive organisations. We ar...
campaignlab.uk
🧵/ Let's put Labour's local election results into perspective... They lost 58% of the seats they were defending, the 10th worst performance for any party in the last sixty years and the 5th worst for a govt. This compares to the Tories losing 48-53% in the locals prior to their landslide defeats.
Overcoming the ecological fallacy by appealing to the world spirit
This crossed my mind a lot when looking at the locals in 2025, where the raw votes in many wards suggested either significant switching from left to right, or Reform gaining non-voters and Labour voters staying home. The individual-level data then showed that intra-bloc switching was low... 1/2
Luke Tryl@luketryl.bsky.social · 3mo agoLooking at early results in Halton through, left-right bloc lens and you see the right bloc is up significantly (this isn’t just Tory Ref switching). Can’t know how much is differential turnout it and how much is cross bloc switching, but likely some of both.
Ahead of the local elections, here's an easy guide of how best to assess the results as they come in, including the best metrics to use and some historical benchmarks. It's on the longer side, but is split into sections and filled with lots of (hopefully) useful data, and completely free-to-read.
How to assess the 2026 local elections
A cut-out-and-keep guide of benchmarks for the 2026 council elections
dylandifford.substack.com
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
Really helpful framework for thinking about the utility of survey experiments for practitioners by @benmtappin.bsky.social 👇 www.benmtappin.com/publication/...
Thinking clearly about the value of survey pretesting for practitioners | Ben Tappin
A research note in which I articulate a simple framework to try and facilitate clearer thinking about the value of survey pretesting for practitioners.
benmtappin.com
🧵1/ Our first meta-science paper (with 350+ coauthors) is published today in Nature. It presents one of the largest-ever reproducibility projects in economics & political science. Here’s what we found 👇
Delighted our paper (with an amazing group of co-authors) is forthcoming in the APSR Takeaway for Labour and other centre-left parties: fixing public services is key to reducing support for the populist right 👇
Zach Dickson@zachdickson.bsky.social · 4mo agoThrilled that my paper (w/@sarahobolt.bsky.social,@catherinedevries.bsky.social,@simonecremaschi.bsky.social) was accepted at the American Political Science Review! We find that declining public services fuel support for the populist right — and show why the right benefits more than other parties 🧵
📄Published Today in Nature: 500 researchers reproduced 100 studies across the social & behavioral sciences to assess their analytical robustness (led by @balazsaczel.bsky.social & @szaszibarnabas.bsky.social). Article: www.nature.com/articles/s41... Preprint: osf.io/preprints/me... TLDR: 1/11
🚨 New POAL brief from @victoraraujo.bsky.social & @miriamsorace.bsky.social out now: how to properly evaluate the causal impact of shocks, debates, and political crises on public opinion. Diagnostics, pitfalls, examples … all in three pages! Read here: www.poal.co.uk/POAL_brief_U...
AJPS article from @kenbenoit.bsky.social, Scott de Marchi, Conor Laver, Michael Laver, and Jinshuai Ma on using LLMs to analyse political texts. 🧵 1/8 Social science research requires reliable extraction of information from texts to identify authors' preferences on various policies and issues.
Turns out sorting below the threshold is quite hard
Anton Könneke@antonkoenneke.de · 5mo agoI've been waiting all year to finally drop this pun in class and tomorrow is finally the day
