Jac Larner

Fantastic stuff, as ever, from Nye on the decline of two cornerstones of Welsh identity over the last century: Rugby and the Labour Party

Ahead of #Senedd26 @jaclarner.bsky.social joined the BBC's Chris Mason in #Pontypridd to discuss the big shifts in Welsh politics that suggest a century of electoral dominance by the Labour Party is being challenged by Reform UK and Plaid Cymru, who are battling to top the polls in #Wales.

BJPolS abstract discussing the impact of political scandals on perceptions of leaders, focusing on the UK and Scotland. The study explores themes like containment and contrast in institutional reactions to such scandals.

From November 2025 -

Political Scandals and Vertical Contagion in Multilevel Systems - cup.org/47wHeJB

- @jaclarner.bsky.social, Robert Johns, @ailsahenderson.bsky.social, @frasmcm.bsky.social & @cjcarman.bsky.social

#OpenAccess

For those interested, raw data download is here along with some basic cross tabs: github.com/jaclarner/Ca...

here's cross tabs: github.com/jaclarner/Ca...

Raw data up by midday

here are basic cross tabs: github.com/jaclarner/Ca...

raw data up by midday

Why consolidate within blocs? Labour→Plaid switchers: 40% say Plaid better "stands up for Wales", 30% tactical. Tory→Reform: 37% immigration, 25% protest. Different motivations, same pattern: consolidation not conversion.

Current polling shows the scale: Plaid & Reform both ~30%, Labour & Conservatives both ~10%. But crucially, the total size of each bloc hasn't really dramatically shifted. Few voters are crossing ideological divides - they've concluded different parties better represent their existing values.

The evidence: In 2021, Labour dominated Welsh-identifying progressives; Plaid held perhaps a quarter. Today those proportions have nearly inverted. Mirror image on the right: Conservatives commanded British-identifying voters in 2021; Reform has now absorbed most of that support.

New 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 data paints picture of consolidation within two blocs: a Welsh-identifying/progressive bloc (with Plaid as largest party) and a British-identifying/conservative bloc (with Reform as largest).

Adds to evidence that 2026 is shaping up to be 2-horse race between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK 🧵

There's not much political & social science can point to and say 'we know almost certainly that this will happen', but accommodating the far-right and subsequently losing is one of them.

Women in Wales are being jailed more often Research has been carried out by a team at Cardiff University

NEWYDD - Adroddiad gan @robdjones.bsky.social yn dadansoddi'r data diweddaraf ar garchardai a charchariad yng Nghymru 👇

NEW - Report from Dr Robert Jones analyses the latest data on prisons and imprisonment in Wales 👇 #Wales #Cymru #Senedd26
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-n...

Paper is a collab effort w/ awesome @scotvoting.bsky.social team; @robjohns75.bsky.social @frasmcm.bsky.social @ailsahenderson.bsky.social & @cjcarman.bsky.social . Thanks also to UK and Scot Govs for providing high profile scandals while we were able to collect data

🚨 NEW in @bjpols.bsky.social : When Partygate hit Westminster, trust in Scottish politicians increased. Our experiments reveal a "contrast effect" - scandals at one level can make the other look better by comparison. Who lost most trust in Westminster? Scottish unionists. Read now #OpenAccess 👇

Almost a decade on, Wales' fiscal reforms deliver nearly £1 Billion windfall but fall short on empowering the Senedd

Major new report calls for tripling of borrowing powers and full income tax control as Fiscal Framework reforms deliver unprecedented budget boost:👇
www.cardiff.ac.uk/__data/asset...

This is shockingly uninformed about how polling works

Diolch Thom - you can get a general idea of it here and see individual constituency estimates. This isn’t exactly how i calculate mine but it does a good job jaclarner.github.io/senedd_ethol...

A bar chart showing approval and disapproval ratings for the UK and Welsh governments in April 2025 and September 2025. In April 2025, UK government approval was 15% with 60% disapproval (net -45%), while Welsh government had 19% approval and 48% disapproval (net -29%). By September 2025, UK government approval dropped to 8% with 71% disapproval (net -63%), and Welsh government approval fell to 12% with 51% disapproval (net -39%). Source: ITV Wales polling, Chart by Jac Larner

Two unpopular governments at both ends of the M4 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Reform and Plaid now neck and neck in Senedd voting intention | YouGov Nigel Farage’s party also takes the lead in Westminster voting intention in Wales for the first time

Here you go yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

This should be Reform on 37 not 35!

The Westminster implications are staggering too. On these numbers, Labour would likely be reduced to just 3 Welsh seats, Plaid would win around 6, and Reform could take most of the remaining 23 seats out of Wales's 32 constituencies 🧵 End

Reform's success creates its own problems for government formation. By cannibalising Conservative support, they may find themselves without natural coalition partners, while their vote could be inefficiently distributed across constituencies 🧵

Coalition arithmetic looking a bit complicated - on these numbers only current realistic possibility is some sort of Plaid and Lab agreement (perhaps with LD and Green support). However, now in territory where more Labour losses put this at risk 🧵

The seat projections are pretty dramatic. Allowing for movement of a few points in many directions: Plaid Cymru ~38 seats, Reform UK ~35 seats, Labour ~11 seats, Conservatives ~6 seats, Lib Dems ~3 seats, Greens ~ 1 🧵

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 🧵

Ahead of the expected proscription of Palestine Action - the first time a protest group has been legally redefined as terrorist - I went through the Hansard of the 2000 Act they're being banned under. Turns out MPs were assured the law wouldn't be applied this way. Thread 🧵🔽

Does anybody have experience of recontacting Prolific participants after a study to measure attitude change over time? Struggling to find information on feasibility of this

For the first time all devolved national elections in the UK will use different electoral systems

Cool site below by @eoghanly.bsky.social allows you to see how they all work turning votes into seats 👇

Universal Pre-K as Economic Stimulus: Evidence from Nine States and Large Cities in the U.S. Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...

Probably would! www.nber.org/papers/w33767

Devolved Elections - Devolved Parliament Projection Tool Create and share your own Devolved Parliament election projections. Interactive, visual, and up-to-date!

Our nowcast projection for the NI Assembly ‘27:
SF — 28 Seats
DUP — 21 Seats
AP — 16 Seats
UUP — 9 Seats
SDLP — 9 Seats
TUV — 7 Seats

From @devolvedelections.bsky.social & devolvedelections.co.uk/northern-ireland/