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Is it 1948 redux? A lesson from history.

Is it 1948 redux? A lesson from history.

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Last Wednesday, I was lucky enough to join Iain Martin of Reaction’s hour-long video chat with historian and Stanford university fellow Niall Ferguson. As ever with Ferguson it was an erudite and illuminating session, ranging across the presidential election, Trump’s four years, the Covid response, Scottish politics and China.  One of his many riffs though struck me hard: is this presidential election about to be 1948 again? Trump is done according to everyone who is anyone in America, reported the…

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Working out Covid-19 and the political classes

Working out Covid-19 and the political classes

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Let’s step outside the Westminster bubble.  What is really exercising people just now?  A good way of judging this is to look at what petitions are being put into Parliament.  And indeed, one petition has caught on this week like wildfire, with 358,000 signatures at the time of writing (10am on Saturday), comfortably the petition with the most signatories. No, it’s not Marcus Rashford’s petition.  It’s a politely-worded request to keep gyms open should Covid-19 cases spike.  To set this in context, it has…

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Anatomy of an Error – Why forecasts missed the 2016 result

Anatomy of an Error – Why forecasts missed the 2016 result

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On election day 2016 the 538 forecast gave Hillary Clinton a 71.4% chance of winning. Of course, she did not. Forecasts now given Biden an even bigger advantage, but coverage of the race is haunted by the miss in 2016. It shouldn’t be. We know what went wrong in 2016, and we can see that Biden’s advantage is more resilient to the issue. The Midwest Mistake It is sometimes said that the polls were wrong in 2016, but it wasn’t…

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Ipsos MORI Politics + Society podcast. Scotland: Yes is winning so what happens now?

Ipsos MORI Politics + Society podcast. Scotland: Yes is winning so what happens now?

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On this week’s podcast, Keiran Pedley is joined by Ailsa Henderson from the University of Edinburgh and Emily Gray of Ipsos MORI Scotland to discuss this week’s bombshell Ipsos MORI / STV News poll showing support for Scottish independence at a record 58%. The group discuss what has caused support for independence to increase, the arguments Scots find convincing for independence and for Scotland staying in the Union and what might happen at the Scottish parliamentary elections next year. Listen…

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A mountain to climb – Labour’s challenge ahead of the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections

A mountain to climb – Labour’s challenge ahead of the 2021 Scottish Parliament elections

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Rachel Ormston of Ipsos MORI Scotland and Ailsa Henderson from the University of Edinburgh look at the numbers. The story of Labour’s woes in Scotland is by now a familiar one. Having dominated elections in Scotland from the mid-1960s to the mid-2000s, the notion that they would return only one Scottish MP was once inconceivable. Yet in 2015, that is exactly what happened – a fate that was to befall them again in 2019, when, following a very poor showing…

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The Pressure of the Populist Right

The Pressure of the Populist Right

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Oscar Wilde once claimed: “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.”  My thread headers are, I must admit, less riveting than that.  Still, they have their moments.  Three years ago, I wrote about the UKIP leadership contest to replace Paul Nuttall.  The candidates formed a crew that one is compelled to describe as motley.  One candidate sought to mine the asteroids, while another was a survivalist who had once been shocked by a gay…

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Ipsos MORI Politics + Society podcast. US election special. Can Trump turn it around?

Ipsos MORI Politics + Society podcast. US election special. Can Trump turn it around?

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On this week’s podcast, Keiran Pedley is joined by Chris Jackson from Ipsos in the US and Ariel Edwards-Levy of the Huffington Post to take a deep-dive look at the upcoming US presidential election. Listen to the episode here: Topics discussed included: What’s driving Biden’s lead? How can Trump turn it around? Shy Trump voters / partisan non-response bias / turnout filters and other important polling points The states to watch Will we know the result on election day? Is…

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The pursuit of happiness

The pursuit of happiness

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Have you noticed that people are still having sex? The government would rather they weren’t. The louchest Prime Minister since Lord Rosebery is presiding over a government that is seeking to tightly regulate when and where we have hanky panky.  It’s not just sex. At 10pm, the bars must shut. They can’t play loud music.  Graciously, the government is allowing them to have live bands with vocalists, but customers aren’t allowed to sing along. Since only six people can meet together, orchestral manoeuvres must take…

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