Daniel Devine

From @philipjcowley.bsky.social - thanks to a happy coincidence we have a much more rigorous than usual understanding of the impact of Keir Starmer's "Island of Strangers" speech. As Cowley puts it "It is not obvious this was the intended outcome"

Full (working) paper which Phil alludes to here

osf.io/preprints/so...

Probably the only positive thing the Labour government will do for academia or, in fact, me.

In fact, some of the best performing places, the wealthiest places in the country, have the worst outcomes for poorer boys.

Probably partly due to demographics, where this is worse is not in the 'usual places'.

Poor outcomes in Berkshire, Essex, Norfolk, Sussex...

Some disastrous numbers in this new IfG report. Less than half - half - of boys eligible for free school meals meet basic standards of early-years development.

The Labour Party have lost sense of any reality.

Developmental science is full of all kinds of methodological challenges that turn out to be relevant beyond kid research - Infants stubbornly refuse to fill out surveys, so we built Children Helping Science to capture webcam data. Voice/video consent process at the start of every session.

🚨 New working paper 🚨

We often see populist parties like Reform UK blame higher energy bills on climate change policies. What are the political consequences of this strategy?

Very early draft; comments and criticisms are welcomed!

full draft: z-dickson.github.io/assets/dicks...

Pretty good analogy; it's the best but also will ruin your life.

Exploring the intricacies of citizens' economic inequality perceptions and their redistributive correlates: Ill-informed, attitudinally incoherent, or predictably irrational? European Consortium for Political Research

🚨Working on economic inequality perceptions and support for redistribution? Sonja Zmerli and I are coordinating a Section about perceived economic inequality at the next @ecpr.bsky.social's General Conference.

👉 Do consider submit your paper! ecpr.eu/Events/Event...

@vd-researchgroup.bsky.social

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.

Second POAL methods brief by amazing @laurenleek.eu on how leading polling and survey providers deal with AI bots with tips for researchers fielding their own surveys too!

Trust

I have a (very) short open access encyclopedia entry, with @tomwgvdmeer.bsky.social on how 'Trust' has been used over the last 15 years:

link.springer.com/rwe/10.1007/...

The book it's in is a v useful reference point for teaching of 200 concepts in soc sci:

link.springer.com/referencewor...

🚨 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 👇

under my regime if a company uses the term “tools” to refer to something without measurable weight which cannot be physically brandished and used as a weapon, that company will be dissolved and its assets seized

We're now over halfway through our @sotonpolitics.bsky.social department seminars!

It's been such a good line-up and very grateful for all those who've joined us - today @dafnoukos.bsky.social and last week Peter Dinesen.

🚨 EPSS Belfast 2026 Call for Papers - One week to go! 🚨

Don't forget to submit your paper or panel proposal to the European Political Science Society @epssnet.bsky.social 2026 conference - just one week to go before the deadline: epssnet.org/belfast-2026...

Are you, or do you know, someone who wants to do a PhD?

Applications are open for full funding (scholarship + maintenance) @sotonpolitics.bsky.social through the @scdtp.bsky.social

Get in touch if you're interested

southcoastdtp.ac.uk/apply/

I have not! I'll reach out. Thanks for the nudge.

What a complete failure of the Labour Party.

Only via IPPR and another campaign/lobby group. If you know a more direct route I'd be happy to hear it!!

There's some work by me here

bsky.app/profile/danj...

But also a good amount of work on class identity signals and its consequences e.g. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

My view - maybe wrong, but at least with some evidence - is that it would be a benefit to a good number but for those it ISN'T a benefit, it isn't a *negative*. They just shrug and move on.

bsky.app/profile/did:...

I think it's complicated but cost free. There is a difference between class identity (still a majority identify as 'working class') and 'objective' class. Signaling 'class' can activate the WC identifiers without a cost for MC (identifying) voters.

Possibly (and I get why it's tricky terrain for Starmer). It is slightly baffling to me though, considering they have SOME class-based policy, notably the civil service scheme.

Unrelated to this post, but: talking about 'class' is the single most effective, cost-free change Labour could make to improve their support.

Most British young men reject the far right - UK in a changing Europe Emilia Belknap and Stuart Turnbull-Dugarte explain their analysis on the demographics of Reform UK voters in the UK. They argue that while the dominant narrative is that young men are the most likely ...

Happy, alongside @emiliabelknap.bsky.social, to make my debut contribution with the fantastic folks at @ukandeu.bsky.social

Emilia & I use data from @britishelectionstudy.com to correct the atomistic fallacy in people's understanding the Reform UK gender gap

ukandeu.ac.uk/most-british...

Our findings suggest that, even though working-class backgrounds have always been underrepresented, not only the level but also the nature of this underrepresentation has changed. Today's working-class politicians are much more likely to have exited the working class before entering politics.

One key result is that, among Social Democratic ministers with a working-class background, there has been a shift: Today, most of those individuals experienced upward class mobility *before* entering politics, whereas the picture was much more balanced in the early post-war era: