Steve Akehurst

That’s very true yeh, still a v possible outcome

Anti-Reform voters sorting themselves to back the most palatable and realistic anti Reform option locally - SNP gains in Scotland, Plaid in Wales, Lib Dems in the home counties, Greens in urban areas and Labour scraping through in the rest.

Imagine the Parliament that produces !

Next election result currently giving ‘rainbow coalition’ vibes

Polling actually slightly under-estimated the total left bloc vote, in the end.

There's a massive and highly motivated anti-Reform vote in this country.

Huge question for the next election about who has the authority to lead it and where.

off my tits on caffeine tbh so don't expect anything else once the crash comes !

Other thing you get from that chart btw is that these voters are not ideologically extreme or unreasonable left activists.

They are pretty normie social democrats. It nderscores that they are still persuadable, but also the extent of the fuck up in alienating them quite as much as Govt has done.

A plurality also say they see Labour as a *pro* austerity govt when there's no way you can meaningfully stack up their decisions like that.

Some of this is just vibes - but some the result of an active choice to create an incoherence between it's choices and pol/communications strategy.

New report out on this soon, but striking thing about Lab/Green switchers is, in some areas, they perceive Lab to be more right wing than they have been.

eg two biggest areas of perceived ideological distance are 'taxing the rich' and 'getting closer to the EU' - things they have actually done !

Clear victory for Green or Lab with the others vote whittled down fairly considerably - maybe a ‘progressive alliance’ can work without any deals done. But am pretty sceptical. Nail biter

Only question of long-term importance tonight imo:

In an information environment that’s about as messy as it gets, do voters collectively figure out who the best anti-Reform vehicle is, or do they split?

Even a narrow Green or Lab victory would be ominous in a constituency that left-leaning

A constituency where 60% of people want a left-of-centre party might get a radical right MP on a quarter of the vote? I certainly can’t think of a better way of doing things!

Very cool electoral system!

Thoughtful and, I think, largely correct.

Increasingly fascinated by the Blue Lab tendency as a group of people that can't grapple with the fact it already won.

What 'hyper liberal woke stuff' has this government done? Who is he arguing against?!

I agree on the caveats of 'count twice', for multiple reasons - though it is still true in many seats. On margin of error, not sure it's super relevant here because the provider patterns in the graph are pretty consistently observed across polls - they are legit house effects I think.

well depends who you choose! if you take the average, i'd say outside margin of error to the left. But whether it's >x2 to left than right has quite big strategic implications, since typically the argument for focusing on defectors to Reform/Con is in most seats they 'count twice'

I am ofc inclined to trust BES the most here, but I believe they pull data from YouGov, so maybe some risk if YouGov themselves are off?

A small but still real strategic challenge for Labour MPs: gaining a clear consensus on where their vote is going!

Is this level of variation between providers normal?

Seems like polling error waiting to happen.

Also means every factional tendency can cherry pick data to fit their view.

Yes agree. But takes a very particular type of politician to do that. Not sure Starmer is alone in struggling with it, esp in the context of a frankly hellish set of governing conditions

Totally risible to imply just being better at the morning media round fixes everything. The sort of hubris that led people to think just being grown ups and not nasty Tories would be a sufficient theory of power to govern a country that’s falling apart at the seams.

Way too much analysis starts from the premise of Keir Starmer as a bad politician. He went from backbencher to PM in 10 years!

The problem is incoherence - across policy agenda, comms, electoral strategy.

Anyone who thinks they can replace him without fixing that will just fall down the same hole

Maybe good for their next gig though?

Persuasion UK | Communications Lead (3 days a week) Job Opening: Persuasion UK | Communications Lead (3 days a week) at Meliore Foundation (FUP) in United Kingdom .

I'm fortunate to sit on the advisory board of @persuasionuk.bsky.social, the excellent public opinion outfit headed up by @steveakehurst.bsky.social.

They're currently recruiting for a new communications lead - a great opportunity: careers.meliorefoundation.org/postings/a92...

Mandelson and the two elites What the public sees as a ruling class is divided against itself

Listen, I hate it when Janan Ganesh is right as much as the next man - but think this perfectly sums up the sociology of Mandelson/Epstein type relationships. www.ft.com/content/ce83...

this, to me, is blueskyism

Let’s be honest, if he had made it another day would it have got anymore headlines than it usually does?

Basically the entire epitaph of this govt and modern social democracy writ large. Too good, too on the nose. See it and weep

I regret to say I think we will need to hang this in the Louvre

I don’t even know if sinister is the right word for most Mandelson-Epstein exchanges. Above all they are just pathetic.

A man so clearly obsessed by money and status - a life he felt entitled to but couldn’t afford - that it corroded any decency and duty left inside him.

Good riddance.

Huge boost to Reform’s prospects anyway as in basically every area at the last election it was very clear who the best anti Tory option was locally, since Lab and LD mostly stayed out of each others way.