Peter Allen

A graph from the FT showing government spending by age cohort. Over-70s have more spent on them than any other age cohort.

Print and send this chart (from your newsletter on Tuesday) to every household in the country.

Article abstract, which says: The educational cleavage is restructuring electoral competition in many democracies, yet there has been insufficient attention on how variation in educational content affects this. In order to address this, this article combines English administrative school records with a unique representative panel of adolescents to estimate the within-individual effect of studying different subjects at school on political party preference. This analysis finds that studying arts and humanities subjects leads to greater support for socially liberal parties, whilst studying business and economics increases support for economically right-wing parties. Students who study technical subjects become more likely to support socially conservative and economically right-wing parties. These relationships between particular subjects and party support also persist into adulthood. As such, this article provides new evidence on the importance of subjects taken in secondary school for political socialisation, during the impressionable years of adolescence.

📣 NEW PAPER ALERT! 🚨

"School subject choices in adolescence affect political party support"

Just published in @wepsocial.bsky.social with @nspmartin.bsky.social and @rolandkappe.bsky.social.

doi.org/10.1080/0140...

🧵👇

Following the success of our spring seminar series earlier this year, we @psapolpsychology.bsky.social are running an autumn/winter series, with four online presentations by great scholars.

Please do register and come along to hear about some really fascinating research!

Strategic Inclusion Without Transformation: How Populist Radical Right Parties Engage With Women’s Interests - Bonnie M. Meguid, Hilde Coffé, Ana Catalano Weeks, Miki Caul Kittilson, 2025 Despite their Männerparteien reputation, populist radical right (PRR) parties have recently expanded their agendas to include women’s interests. When do they em...

🚨 New article out today in @cpsjournal.bsky.social !

📄 “Strategic Inclusion Without Transformation: How Populist Radical Right Parties Engage With Women’s Interests”

With Bonnie Meguid, @hildecoffe.bsky.social & Miki Kittilson

🔗 doi.org/10.1177/0010...

Super excited to see the second paper from my PhD now published!

I find that making MPs' pay and expenses more salient significantly reduces political trust. Raising awareness of the regulator mitigates this effect when mentioning pay, but does not improve trust when expenses are mentioned.

Why a “National Commission” is the way forward for electoral reform Electoral reform is back on the UK’s political agenda as First-Past-the-Post strains under the pressures of multi-party politics. The new APPG for Fair Elections proposes a National Commission to e…

The UK’s voting system is under pressure – is reform possible?
A new APPG proposal for a National Commission could offer a fair, open path forward.
Read our latest IPR blog by @dmk1793.bsky.social 👇
buff.ly/YMCsBFw

Congratulations 🥂

National gimmicks as soft power strategy: WWE’s Clash at the Castle and the performance of the Cymru Wales Brand This article introduces the concept of the national gimmick – a performative, stylised persona derived from professional wrestling – as an effective lens for analysing government nation branding and soft power strategies. Using WWE’s Clash at the Castle and its 2022 partnership with the Welsh Government as a case study, the article demonstrates how governments employ entertainment spectacles to project curated national identities to global audiences. It argues that professional wrestling’s emphasis on stereotype, performance, and narrative makes it an especially potent medium for understanding how states simplify and disseminate nation brands. By examining the portrayal of the Cymru Wales Brand through WWE media, and the tensions surrounding Welsh representation at the event, the article highlights both the potential and the limitations of such partnerships. This interdisciplinary contribution bridges political communication and pro-wrestling studies to advance the study of government’s soft power strategies and the politics of branding.

New article out in @bjpir.bsky.social that investigates the #WWE + Welsh Government 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 deal to host “Clash at the Castle 2002” in Cardiff.

Mixing nation branding & pro-wrestling literature it analyses how WWE fit the Cymru Wales Brand into its broadcasts. (1/?)

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

It was a very great pleasure to appear on one of my favourite podcasts, and to talk with David Runciman about the Past, Present, and Future (!) of electoral reform & proportional representation

A different kind of Oxford union

Congratulations, if that’s the word(?)

The persistence of New Labour ideas and people was something @ntmatthews.bsky.social and I discussed in our paper from last year titled “New Labour and Political Myth”, free to read www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Possibly the only place in London with smaller offices than SPIR?

An aside, but which podcast app do you use? The transcripts are easier to read than the Spotify ones.

YouTube video by Hal - Topic Worry About the Wind

Thanks for this, I love it. Aside from the obvious referents, it’s a bit reminiscent of an Irish band who did (I think) one album and then no more called HAL youtu.be/X1RTvpuyAog?...

Agreed — I have subscribed for a decade, so I do pay. The point is that they have changed what you get in return for that subscription.

Ok, to be fair I just checked and they are now giving me The Athletic (sports) as part of my subscription so I partly take that back.

The premiumisation of their subscription model is quite something— to see recipes (understandable-ish) and then sports coverage (less understandable) I would need to pay extra. Both were included when I first subscribed a decade ago (so far as I can recall).

Is low turnout undermining growth? A reminder that you can read Lawrence’s post on the Tump-Putin summit here, his next post will look at the outcome.

New post out:

Today we have a guest post from the brilliant @dmk1793.bsky.social asking whether low turnout is harming growth as well as undermining democratic legitimacy.

(Free to read)

open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/i...

This moment never ceases to excite. Out in shops on 9 Sept...

This article is refreshing not least because it starts from the point of thinking about voters as they actually are, not as we might wish them to be. The key idea — that voters aren’t pundits and political science shouldn’t expect them to be — is crucial.

Yes, aiming for PSA so see you there!

🚨New book alert!🚨

Thrilled to announce that my @britishacademy.bsky.social Monograph, 'Capital, Privilege, and Political Participation,' will be published via @livunipress.bsky.social later this month.

Find details and pre-order (with discount) here: liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/book/10....

This looks great, congratulations.

Title page of article "Electoral Hope" in journal Political Studies.

I have a new article out at @polstudies.bsky.social. In "Electoral Hope", I make the case that supposedly irrational "wishful thinking" is actually a crucial part of how voters make rational sense of their role in democracies.

OA link: doi.org/10.1177/0032...

Fewer emails.

Bluesky is my side hustle.

Professor Nick Pearce appointed to Pensions Commission Professor Nick Pearce has been appointed to the revived Pensions Commission, which will examine the barriers stopping people from saving enough for retirement.

The UK government has announced the revival of the landmark Pensions Commission, with Professor @iprnickp.bsky.social (Director of the University of Bath’s Institute for Policy Research) as one of its three members.

Read more here 🔗 buff.ly/7tL3CN3

This is Feeder Rd? I had noticed a bit of this on the St Philips Greenway nearby but hadn’t considered the possibility it was deliberate. Ugh.

Get copies of 20th Century Pub We’re not very good at remembering to mention this: we’ve got copies of 20th Century Pub for sale. And if you haven’t read it, you really should.

It's been a while since we said this but... you should buy our books, especially '20th Century Pub', which you can get direct from us for £13, delivered in the UK. 📚

boakandbailey.com/2025/07/get-...