Welcome to my summary of the latest national voting intention polls for the next general election, along with the latest MRP projections and party leadership ratings. If you'd like to find out more about how polls work, how reliable they are and how to make sense of them, check out my book, Polling UnPacked: the History, Uses and Abuses of Political Opinion Polls, or sign up for my weekly email, The Week in Polls: General election voting intention polls PollsterConLabLDGrnRefLab leadFieldwork Find Out Now 19% (+1) 21% (nc) 10% (-2) 16% (+1) 25% (+1) -4% (vs Ref) 1-2/7 GB YouGov ...
I have been a Liberal Democrat, and part of the wider liberal tradition, for my entire adult life. I believe there has rarely been a more important time for liberal politics to be at the forefront of British public life. Yet too often, our party seems more comfortable talking about blocking 16 and 17-year-olds from social media than trusting the same young people we have long argued should have the right to vote. That matters. Liberalism is not meant to be timid. It is not meant to chase every passing moral panic. It is not meant to dress itself up ...
Twelve principal authority council by-elections this week and, after last week's blip, a return to winning ways for the Liberal Democrats. [IMG: Colin Millichap with David Chadwick] Colin Millichap with David Chadwick. Yscir with Honddu Isaf & Llandew (Powys) Council By-Election Result: [IMG: 🔶] LDM: 39.7% (-1.1) [IMG: ➡] RFM: 34.6% (New) [IMG: 🌼] PLC: 12.8% (New) [IMG: 🌳] CON: 9.1% (-50.2) [IMG: 🌍] GRN: 2.0% (New) [IMG: 🌹] LAB: 1.9% (New)Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative.Changes w/ 2022. — Election Maps UK (@electionmaps.uk) 2026-07-03T11:14:57.127Z Thank you to Patrick Doddy for flying the Lib Dem flag here. For what all this ...
"Multiple sources inside the children's home division said that, as they prepared for sale, they were pressed to rapidly open more homes and take on more children, even when they didn't have the staff to keep up. They claim they were told this was so the company could be sold for the maximum amount of money."Jessica Murray says that when private equity takes over a UK care home it can mean the children are treated like cattle. Ben Worthy argues that, if he is to succeed as a prime minister who takes over in mid-parliament, Andy Burnham will need to ...
The Guardian reports that the standards watchdog has been urged to investigate whether Nigel Farage lobbied the Bank of England to drop a cryptocurrency plan that could be costly for the billionaire bankrolling his party, potentially in breach of parliamentary rules. The paper tells us that the Reform UK leader has said his party's major donor, Christopher Harborne, wanted nothing in exchange for the £15m he donated to the party and the undeclared £5m gift to Farage the Guardian revealed in April. But, Farage used a private meeting at the Bank to urge its governor, Andrew Bailey, to drop plans ...
Here's the tally of seats changing hands in principal authority council by-elections held between the May 2026 and the May 2027 local elections: Con Lab Lib Dem Green Reform SNP Plaid Ind/ Other Net Con [6] – 0 (+2/-2) -1 (0/-1) -2 (+2/-4) -1 (0/-1) – 0 (+1/-1) -4 Lab – [5] – -1 (+1/-2) -4 (0/-4) – – +1 (+1/0) -4 Lib Dem 0 (+2/-2) – [9] – – -1 (0/-1) – +1 (+1/0) 0 Grn +1 (+1/0) +1 (+2/-1) – [5] – – – – +2 Ref +2 (+4/-2) +4 (+4/0) – – [3] – -1 (0/-1) +1 ...
Television series that didn't take themselves too seriously in the first place, such as The Avengers or Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), seem to last better than most. This documentary looks at the latter show, whose 26 episodes were first broadcast in 1969 and 1970. It features interviews with Kenneth Cope, Annette Andre, Cyril Frankel, Harry Fielder, Ray Austin, Ken Baker, Guy Pratt and Malcolm Christopher. If you've not seen Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) - the original version, not the later one with Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer - then my edited version of the YouTube blurb for this documentary will ...
I was the stand in for the All-Saints Lobley Hill community fair on Saturday. The organiser of the fair needed me to bring some goats. The person originally lined up had pulled out. I said yes meaning I missed a surgery and a Focus delivery in Birtley. The goats made lots of new friends!
The Hoppings (the largest travelling fair in Europe) were in Newcastle recently. Thankfully I decided not to go on any of the rides (which seem to get taller, faster and bigger every year.) Here's the video I shot.
Given how popular (and lengthy!) my list of Reform councillor departures after the May 2025 elections turned out to be, here is a new list, this time for councillors elected under the Reform banner on 7 May 2026, or in by-elections after that date, who have already departed the party for one reason or another. Jay Cooper, Sefton: declared "not welcome" by Nigel Farage following reports of him calling the Holocaust a hoax and then resigned from the party (May 2026). Stuart Prior, Essex: expelled by Reform and resigned as a councillor after "he was accused the week before the ...
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Andy Burnham has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to renew British democracy. He should take it.
On Monday I had lunch with an American friend who was visiting London. I mentioned that later that day I was co-sponsoring an event in Parliament with Labour MP Clive Lewis on the subject of defending UK democracy. Her expression changed immediately. "Please," she said, "learn from us." She wasn't talking about Donald Trump as an individual. She was talking about what has happened to the institutions of American democracy over the past few years, especially in the 18 months of Trump 2.0. "We assumed the system would protect itself. We assumed there would always be enough guardrails. We assumed ...
Embed from Getty ImagesBen Stokes's final text innings was embarrassingly self-indulgent. As Jonathan Riew says in a great article in the Guardian today, it "managed to capture in a single moment everything people dislike about this team". But he also looks far deeper into what ails English cricket. So he praises Stokes's "legendary" talent, endurance, ambition and competitiveness, and says those qualities could have inspired England to big series wins if they had been intelligently harnessed: Instead, English cricket was more interested in commodifying Stokes's talent than channelling it. Under the directorship of Andrew Strauss in the mid-2010s, and then ...
The recent (and long overdue) release of the UK's Defence Investment Plan (DIP) has only intensified the long-running debate about how to fund an increase in the UK Defence Budget, a debate that has already cost the Labour Government two Ministers. Cursory examination of the Government's plans soon revealed that rather than being "fully funded", the plan actually requires a further £4.7bn of cuts to other departments and £10.7bn of "efficiency savings" in the next 4 years, neither of which have yet been identified. It also fails to provide any budget for 2030 onwards, with that can kicked down the ...
Embed from Getty ImagesThis is a letter published by the Cornish Times: On June 13, a special gathering was held at The Story of Emily to mark the centenary of the death of Emily Hobhouse, the British humanitarian and peace campaigner whose work exposed the suffering of women and children in the concentration camps of the South African War. It was a privilege to attend this commemorative event and to join others in remembering one of Cornwall's most remarkable daughters. Born in the hamlet of St Ive, near Liskeard, Emily Hobhouse dedicated her life to humanitarian causes and the pursuit ...
When Oliver Smedley shot Reg Calvert, more was at stake than a row over a radio transmitter. According to a 2011 blog post by Adam Curtis- thanks to a reader for putting me on to it - theirs was a dispute about the very nature of liberty: A historian called Adrian Johns has written a brilliant book about Pirate Radio in the 1960s, called Death of a Pirate. In it he argues that Reg Calvert and Oliver Smedley represent two completely different kinds of "privateer". Reg Calvert was part of an old, unruly tradition of true independence and libertarian freedom. ...
The latest edition of my email newsletter about work in Parliament, A Lord's Eye View, is out and you can also read it in full below. But if you'd like to get future editions emailed direct to you as soon as they are published, sign up now: Welcome to my latest update on work in the House of Lords, this time looking at the government's continuing willingness to award business to Capita. Capita and the case for exclusion Capita missed the promised end of June deadline for sorting out problems with the civil service pension scheme, a crisis that I've ...
Nation Cymru reports that a Plaid Cymru Senedd Member has called out the "bullshit" and misinformation being spread about the Welsh Government's Nation of Sanctuary policy ahead of a Reform-led debate. The news site says that in a video posted on TikTok by Kiera Marshall she said it was "time to call bullshit" on disinformation and myths circulating about asylum seekers and refugees living in Wales: The MS listed a number claims made about people seeking sanctuary which she said were false. Speaking in her social video, Ms Marshall explained that refugees and asylum seekers do not get priority access ...