Steve Akehurst

The last time I posted the income relationship to presidential vote among White respondents to the @electionstudies.bsky.social ANES, people asked for additional estimates among all voters.

Updated estimates here:

Labour has decided to stop punching its own voters Sir Keir Starmer has embraced peace and love of the party’s hippy base

No more hippy punching. Starmer decides to stop punching its own voters in the face www.economist.com/britain/2025...

Kaleb Horton Writing can be beautiful.

wrote about a great writer thealexpress.substack.com/p/kaleb-horton

Younger voters far more pro preserving it than older too. Bit of an odd one.

Another viewpoint on the same phenomenon

All that years of anti-climate/environment invective on Conservative right has achieved so far is create a wedge within their own electoral coalition. Those switching from Con to Reform are anti Net Zero, those that have remained are pro.

Labour coalition meanwhile is basically unscathed.

Hi Matt, fracking is deeply unpopular with voters - including working class voters - in this country. You might even call this a popularist position. Please bother learning the basics about a country you regularly pontificate about.

Also a speech more reflective of the values of voters Labour has actually lost since 2024 - rather than the ones the media often imagine they’ve lost

Decent speech overall. First time I’ve seen Starmer confidently articulate a values argument against Reform, not just a narrow competence one. Potentially important juncture.

These are particularly critical points that should be much better understood, not just by the government but also by political commentators, journalists, and broadcast bookers.

In general the weird little clique of groypers, Anglo Futurists and other lunatics became quite influential because of three factors:

turns out talking about industrial policy is less interesting to most of the lobby media than tylenol and autism. Who knew!

Well yeh there’s that too! Perhaps the outline of a deal with Cons there where they don’t stand anyone in certain places

All data here is
@persuasionuk.bsky.social via YouGov; let me know if you need any more info. End of thread!

So all in all, tactical voting will be huge part of next election - but persuasion matters hugely for Lab too. If it can't get Lab/Reform voters back in the tent, it has to build a different anti-Reform coalition (bringing in soft Cons/Greens/LDs) and hope the right is split.

Crucially this 'squeeze swing' to Lab is less useful in Leave-voting seats, bc there's fewer progressive 3rd party voters there (& those that remain are stubborn!). Plus they're coming from further back. That said, v helpful in the many Blue Wall seats they won off Con! (also not discussed enough)

This can work the other way, tho - many Lab seats have Con 2nd at GE24, but Reform ahead in MRPs.

Who do anti-Lab voters vote for absent a pact? Some chance they will be less switched on to local dynamics than anti-Reform voters (who are more engaged & used to tactical voting)

But some really important caveats. Firstly, this is quite a crude squeeze question. Reality may be messier. In many areas, it may well not be true (or obvious) to voters that the choice is Labour or Reform. For instance, in Lab vs SNP or Lab vs Green seats.

Labour claw this back largely by crushing other progressive parties and taking a slither of the Conservative vote. This is why keeping its left flank onside, and not trolling them for sport (as is sometimes Lab/SW1's wont), is really important!

We probably don't talk about tactical voting enough.

In a recent poll, telling people it's Lab vs Reform in their area took national voting intention from a 12 point lead for Reform to +2 lead for Labour.

But - before Lab get too chipper - there's still quite a lot of uncertainty.

Quick 🧵 here!

Another piece of (excellent) research showing that support for the far-right is never going to be driven purely by either 'culture' or 'economics'. Inevitably, both are involved - and they're often inseparable.

I'll have more to say on Reform's proposals to scrap ILR at some point but for now I'll just note this - anyone telling you this is a popular idea doesn't know the polling. Overwhelming majority of public back giving people who work and pay taxes most or all rights after 5 years or less

Devils advocate here but for all the talk of the Conservative election prowess, or Britain being a right wing country, the Tories one trick is consolidating right leaning voters while the left splinters under FPTP. Until it stopped working in 2024.

Only route to Reform victory is through same path.

2015 is the exception fyi!

Left of centre = Lab, SDP/Lib Dem, Green, SNP, Plaid

Right of centre = Con, Reform, UKIP, BXP, BNP et al

Actually at a glance, if you code the old Liberals as left of centre (v defensible) the right’s record is 3 elections in 100 years (but needs double checking!).

Fun fact: left-of-centre parties have won a higher % of the vote than right-of-centre parties in every UK general election in the last 45 years bar one.

Worth remembering in light of the British right’s continued ability to set the terms of debate even when not in office.

Yeh good point, not sure - i think i would mostly say it is status (as straight/white/working class + mostly male) as the dominant cultural group in society, which has been lost to social liberalism generally. Add on to that, that group is no longer at centre of economy. But you're right it's vague.

Doing some more research on this atm.

Essentially in a crude squeeze ('it's Lab or Reform in your area'), yes most come back - though not all (about 60-70%). But a few known unknowns - what happens if local context is ambiguous, and/or Lab keeps making those voters eat shit every day for 4 years?!

prob right at least while boats/migration are so salient. My basic view is start with voters still open to voting to you. If you do that you find a much more coherent coalition (bringing in yes some Lab/Reform switchers but also soft Tories, soft Greens & Lib Dems) than chasing ppl who hate ur guts

Here you go: d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Re...

Tables for this are pretty telling. Labour 2024 vote:

Still Lab - 33% (!)
Don't know - 27%
Plaid - 14%
Reform - 8%
Green - 6%
LD - 5%
Other - 3%

Meanwhile, Reform crushing Tory vote - taking 41% (!) of it - plus non-voters I suspect.

Extreme version of what's happening in England.