V.interesting numbers from YouGov. Implying that Andy Street's personal premium above the party has balloned from 6% in 2021 to 18% today. Houchen's polling 51% in Teeside implies a similar personal vote vs 2021 of around c.30% above the party nationally

A parallel American university / Higher Education could be set up based on grades/meritocracy/ free enquiry and the political consequences - if it worked - could be enormous. A bifurcation of elites

Nicely communicated by Chris Hopkins and his team and their West Mids poll. Very easy to be snarky about the Savanta poll but a very quick acknowledgement and correction, which interestingly is only a modest change. Polling karma is a real thing.

Struggling to understand that we could potentially legalise assisted dying but ban smoking. Sorry kids you can’t smoke, but you can end your life

Always worth a look from Owen Winter, and to my mind, more realistic estimates of what could happen. Interesting also how fundamentals analysis can really perform well vs poll nowcasts.

Worth a read from the great Chris Hanretty

Great thread from Sunder Katwala on the term “Global Majority” apparently being used for job adverts in the U.K. Today’s Times carries a piece by me on the political battles to come in this area thetimes.co.uk/article/cultur…

Enjoyed doing this immensely with Amol Rajan

Reckon G Elliott Morris should tweet this graph out periodically. One of the more curious developments in consumption of election polling across the western world is lack of distinction many commentators make between nowcasts and forecasts. They’re not meant to be the same

After a punchy state of the union address this long-read for UnHerd from us here at Focaldata on how Biden is not out might be worth your time unherd.com/2024/02/how-bi…

Very interested in how Reform UK perform in Blackpool South by election. If there’s another underperformance from them, there’s a strong case to be made that there’s a potential systematic polling error.

Look forward to this column, and a reminder that under proportional representation the politicians propagating the belief sets of the below three people would magnify enormously.

Here at Focaldata we examined the polling behind public attitudes towards Shamima Begum. There's no other public attitude question that produces such a comprehensive centre-right view: 86% agree with her losing her citizenship, and only 5% don't. focaldata.com/blog/bi-focal-…

🧵 NEW: Why are salaries so much higher in the US than in Britain?

Both nation’s economies are going in very different directions - but there is more to headline differences than meets the eye… the-times.co.uk/article/f8099f…

The Times and The Sunday Times Keiran Southern

Think the polling industry needs to have a think about how realistic MRPs are this far out from an election. Just wondering what the mood music would have been in 1997 when Blair touched 60% and they’d had MRP.

There’s a strong case to be made that the Democrat tilt for The White House has been prematurely written off. Wrote a long deep dive for UnHerd on why this might be the case unherd.com/2024/02/how-bi…

The leadership of my home town’s cathedral is just so off piste. Just a slow motion car crash of 1,000 years of history and heritage

Really good swing state polling detail in here on Biden’s challenges. And yes, age is definitely one of them and not a media fixation!