Calum Weir

Hahahaha, very kind! Trends 👏 trends 👏 trends 👏

For the craic - The trendines for each pollster from 2024 to now

Bought in a wee antiques market today - When did we stop calling political rows/scandals “The X Affair” and start using “-gate”?

How much does immigration actually matter to the public? Shabana Mahmood was back in the Commons today outlining her controversial immigration plans.

We keeping hearing that polls show immigration is a top priority for voters - but how are such polls designed, and does tweaking the way we ask the question affect the answer?

Fascinating chat with Calum Weir of @labourtogether.bsky.social on just that

www.newstatesman.com/podcasts/pol...

Ah, thanks Denis and good luck!

We showed four options, four times out of 16 possible options

That’s very kind, thanks Christina!!

So I think this would be the natural follow-on from this research to be fair!

It's a bit harder to say with some of the more experimental techniques because base sizes can be a little small, but we did find this for the open-ends we ran (again, with a reminder that this skews towards salience!):

Not too simplistic at all!

I think this is pretty much it, and basically that polling will always make it easier to see the former than the latter!

Ach, it's just a case of this creaky old clock trying to get the time right at least once!

Measuring What Matters — Labour Together Knowing what issues are most important to the public is the bedrock of understanding voters. Ironically, its own importance can’t go understated. This report applies some overdue methodological experi...

Overall, we find that immigration looks important in polls because it’s highly salient, not because it outranks daily concerns.

Polling captures the salience, but requires a bit of digging to see the whole picture of public priority.

You can read more here!: www.labourtogether.uk/all-reports/...

In a similar vein, a we did a MaxDiff.

MaxDiff asks people to pick the most and least important issue from small sets.

It reveals a large group who mark immigration as “least important,” even while its overall salience stays high. In relative terms, the Cost of Living is much more important here.

We then ran a pairwise experiment.

They avoid this some of the issues around salience by forcing respondents to choose between two issues at a time, producing a clearer hierarchy.

When we use this method, Cost of Living concerns dominate, with immigration and asylum much lower.

We then stuck with open-ends but changed the question a little.

Most pollsters ask about issues facing the country.

When we ask about people's day-to-day lives, the change is starkly different.

Immigration is only mentioned in a tenth of results. A majority mentioned the Cost of Living.

Next is open-ending.

Shown here from @ipsosintheuk.bsky.social, immigration also tops the list even when asking open-ends.

We ran our own version of this and found that responses show that mentions of immigration reflect salience rather than a fixed attitude: people raise it for different reasons.

First is wording and options.

In an experiment we conducted with @opiniumresearch.bsky.social, when respondents were shown the 'cost of living' as an option, it drove the importance of immigration down a bit.

Immigration is salient, but unlike an issue like health, more prone to fluctuating.

Yesterday, we put out a report on the most important issues to voters.

We know that immigration now tops the traditional most important issues question (see below from @yougov.co.uk).

But that doesn't tell the full story.

Here is a rundown of the experiments we did to test this out (A THREAD):

‘Bread, circuses, and polling errors: Are we truly measuring what matters?’ – LabourList The most important part of the body politic is the stomach. The eyes can be distracted, the ears can be blasted with noise, but the…

Pollsters who ask questions that add nuance are rewarded with a richer look at the public’s outlook argues Labour Together's @cwp-weir.bsky.social

This is a great post on how to understand what’s important to people - it’s shocking that this might be news to political decision makers

Ah, thank you greatly, Andrew!

'Bread, circuses, and polling errors: Are we truly measuring what matters?' - LabourList Pollsters who ask questions that add nuance are rewarded with a richer look at the public’s outlook argues Labour Together's Calum Weir.

Essential reading from Calum Weir - on findings from some innovative polling from Labour Together.

His words
"Immigration is salient, polarising and important.
Cost of living is foundational, unifying and in some ways, even more important."

labourlist.org/2025/11/immi...

@cwp-weir.bsky.social

Nevermind Catullus!!

Top top work here from @cwp-weir.bsky.social

Finding increasingly bizarre ways to justify my Classics undergrad

Very kind Mark, thank you!

Fascinating piece.

'Bread, circuses, and polling errors: Are we truly measuring what matters?' - LabourList Pollsters who ask questions that add nuance are rewarded with a richer look at the public’s outlook argues Labour Together's Calum Weir.

Really interesting experiment by @cwp-weir.bsky.social
labourlist.org/2025/11/immi...

I found this so interesting. We talk about polling results endlessly but rarely discuss how we ask the questions. This salience vs importance question is fascinating.

'Bread, circuses, and polling errors: Are we truly measuring what matters?' - LabourList Pollsters who ask questions that add nuance are rewarded with a richer look at the public’s outlook argues Labour Together's Calum Weir.

As immigration dominates the brief this morning, here’s my two cents on the salience vs. the importance of the issue:

labourlist.org/2025/11/immi...

(Full report linked below - Many thanks to @emmaburnell.bsky.social!!)

On the service to barking, no less