Chris Prosser
@caprosser.com
Political scientist | Co-director British Election Study | Election number crunching for ITV | Trustee McDougall Trust
caprosser.com
caprosser.com
Pinned
Chris Prosser
@caprosser.com
· Jan 15
I spent last week p̶r̶o̶c̶r̶a̶s̶t̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g building myself a new website via blogdown/hugo.
Pretty pleased with the result, so check it out: caprosser.com
Pretty pleased with the result, so check it out: caprosser.com
Reposted by Chris Prosser
UK Poll of Polls, 14 February 2026
Reform: 29% (27-31%)
Labour: 20% (18-22%)
Conservative: 19% (17-20%)
Greens: 14% (13-16%)
Lib Dem: 12% (11-14%)
Other: 3% (3-4%)
SNP: 3% (2-3%)
Reform: 29% (27-31%)
Labour: 20% (18-22%)
Conservative: 19% (17-20%)
Greens: 14% (13-16%)
Lib Dem: 12% (11-14%)
Other: 3% (3-4%)
SNP: 3% (2-3%)
February 14, 2026 at 10:25 AM
UK Poll of Polls, 14 February 2026
Reform: 29% (27-31%)
Labour: 20% (18-22%)
Conservative: 19% (17-20%)
Greens: 14% (13-16%)
Lib Dem: 12% (11-14%)
Other: 3% (3-4%)
SNP: 3% (2-3%)
Reform: 29% (27-31%)
Labour: 20% (18-22%)
Conservative: 19% (17-20%)
Greens: 14% (13-16%)
Lib Dem: 12% (11-14%)
Other: 3% (3-4%)
SNP: 3% (2-3%)
Brushing up on some reading for a research ethics workshop I'm running in a couple of weeks and perhaps getting a little carried away...
February 12, 2026 at 12:05 PM
Brushing up on some reading for a research ethics workshop I'm running in a couple of weeks and perhaps getting a little carried away...
Sounds like excellent research and I will not be asking any probing questions about causal identification at this time.
February 9, 2026 at 4:36 PM
Sounds like excellent research and I will not be asking any probing questions about causal identification at this time.
This is fun, even if the British Media, Politics, and Policy cluster is hanging out on the edge of the galaxy.
February 9, 2026 at 2:34 PM
This is fun, even if the British Media, Politics, and Policy cluster is hanging out on the edge of the galaxy.
An 'archaic' procedure such as one of the central planks of the British constitution, which establishes the supremacy of the Commons over the Lords...
January 29, 2026 at 7:51 AM
An 'archaic' procedure such as one of the central planks of the British constitution, which establishes the supremacy of the Commons over the Lords...
I bet the author is a British person living in Australia, because my petty gripe is that in Australia you can get a flat white in many sizes (and could 20 years ago when I started drinking coffee there) whereas in Britain people insist it can only be one size.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
My petty gripe: a large flat white is an oxymoron – a bastardisation of the drink Australia gave the world
The integrity of the flat white is being diluted by size inflation. It’s a sign that most people have no idea what they really want at all
www.theguardian.com
January 14, 2026 at 3:08 PM
I bet the author is a British person living in Australia, because my petty gripe is that in Australia you can get a flat white in many sizes (and could 20 years ago when I started drinking coffee there) whereas in Britain people insist it can only be one size.
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle...
'Immediate reject' is a new peer review option to me... does it mean 'wow this is bad, don't even read my report just hit the reject button'?!?
January 14, 2026 at 1:11 PM
'Immediate reject' is a new peer review option to me... does it mean 'wow this is bad, don't even read my report just hit the reject button'?!?
Procrastinating from writing something by analysing the number of peer reviews I do. Not sure if my new website made me more visible, or getting something into APSR made me look like a serious person, but 2025 was apparently the year journal editors remembered who I was again.
January 8, 2026 at 10:13 AM
Procrastinating from writing something by analysing the number of peer reviews I do. Not sure if my new website made me more visible, or getting something into APSR made me look like a serious person, but 2025 was apparently the year journal editors remembered who I was again.
The main thing I'm taking away from this is that more of you should listen to Olivia Chaney, so if you like indie folk, give her a listen!
December 3, 2025 at 2:47 PM
The main thing I'm taking away from this is that more of you should listen to Olivia Chaney, so if you like indie folk, give her a listen!
Lately, I have been reading lots of early 20th century literature; now I want to use semi-colons in everything I write; I feel sad they have fallen into disuse.
December 2, 2025 at 10:59 AM
Lately, I have been reading lots of early 20th century literature; now I want to use semi-colons in everything I write; I feel sad they have fallen into disuse.
Adversarial Poetry sounds like a great research genre.
Would definitely read studies of the effect of adversarial poetry on political persuasion, adversarial poetry and affective polarisation, adversarial poetry and misinformation.
So many possibilities 😆
Would definitely read studies of the effect of adversarial poetry on political persuasion, adversarial poetry and affective polarisation, adversarial poetry and misinformation.
So many possibilities 😆
Looks like LLMs are *very* vulnerable to attack via poetic allusion: "curated poetic prompts yielded high attack-success rates (ASR), with some providers exceeding 90% ..."
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
https://arxiv.org/html/2511.15304v1
November 21, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Adversarial Poetry sounds like a great research genre.
Would definitely read studies of the effect of adversarial poetry on political persuasion, adversarial poetry and affective polarisation, adversarial poetry and misinformation.
So many possibilities 😆
Would definitely read studies of the effect of adversarial poetry on political persuasion, adversarial poetry and affective polarisation, adversarial poetry and misinformation.
So many possibilities 😆
Not at all relevant to the actual discussion about this, but I remember being really impressed by the Boix paper when I read it as a grad student, whereas now every time I see it I can't get past the fact that in the 1990s you could get an N=22 OLS into the APSR.
I think the conventional wisdom that switching to PR, even explicitly to block Reform, would delegitimise the system is completely wrong. You would get buy-in from every other party, bar maybe the Tories, and it's historically the main reason electoral reform happens. www.jstor.org/stable/2585577
November 17, 2025 at 1:04 PM
Not at all relevant to the actual discussion about this, but I remember being really impressed by the Boix paper when I read it as a grad student, whereas now every time I see it I can't get past the fact that in the 1990s you could get an N=22 OLS into the APSR.
Well with this news I'm almost certainly never going to get round to doing a proper version of the 'there's no relationship between change in crime and PCC voting' paper that's been on the back burner for nine years...
Police and crime commissioners to be abolished, government to announce
Police and crime commissioners to be abolished, government to announce
System introduced in 2012 across England and Wales has faced criticism from police chiefs
*
UK politics live – latest updates
The controversial system of police and crime commissioners is to be abolished by the government, the Guardian has learned.
Under the system, introduced under the Conservatives, all 43 police forces covering local areas across England and Wales had to answer to an elected official. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
November 13, 2025 at 12:15 PM
Well with this news I'm almost certainly never going to get round to doing a proper version of the 'there's no relationship between change in crime and PCC voting' paper that's been on the back burner for nine years...
Currently in the early stages of a global 'please remove me from this mailing list' reply-all catastrophe 😱
November 13, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Currently in the early stages of a global 'please remove me from this mailing list' reply-all catastrophe 😱
I mention the Hall, Ariss and Todorov study of basketball betting (more information -> worse performance) in the slides for one of my pol psych lectures, and now the powerpoint designer wants to illustrate the slide with some basketballs, which certainly creates an interesting juxtaposition... 😂
November 6, 2025 at 10:15 AM
I mention the Hall, Ariss and Todorov study of basketball betting (more information -> worse performance) in the slides for one of my pol psych lectures, and now the powerpoint designer wants to illustrate the slide with some basketballs, which certainly creates an interesting juxtaposition... 😂
I fell down a typographical rabbit hole last week and made my own R Markdown template. Quite pleased with how it looks, so take a look, and if you like it too, feel free to use it!
Package here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Full explanation/example here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Package here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Full explanation/example here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
November 4, 2025 at 10:35 AM
I fell down a typographical rabbit hole last week and made my own R Markdown template. Quite pleased with how it looks, so take a look, and if you like it too, feel free to use it!
Package here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Full explanation/example here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Package here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Full explanation/example here: github.com/drcaprosser/...
Nothing says 'boost productivity' like policies designed to make people more tired and hungover.
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
Pubs to stay open until early hours in push for UK growth
Exclusive: Plans for England and Wales would help the ailing hospitality sector but have attracted criticism from health experts
www.theguardian.com
October 9, 2025 at 7:02 AM
Nothing says 'boost productivity' like policies designed to make people more tired and hungover.
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
www.theguardian.com/business/202...
This is great - had always wondered if the telephone call thing was *actually* how they found out they'd won.
In the unlikely event that I won a Nobel prize I'd probably see an unknown international number, assume it was scam, and block it.
In the unlikely event that I won a Nobel prize I'd probably see an unknown international number, assume it was scam, and block it.
October 7, 2025 at 11:35 AM
This is great - had always wondered if the telephone call thing was *actually* how they found out they'd won.
In the unlikely event that I won a Nobel prize I'd probably see an unknown international number, assume it was scam, and block it.
In the unlikely event that I won a Nobel prize I'd probably see an unknown international number, assume it was scam, and block it.
Judging by the number of review request I've had lately, I see you all had a more productive summer than I did 😐
October 7, 2025 at 9:18 AM
Judging by the number of review request I've had lately, I see you all had a more productive summer than I did 😐
A conclusion reached by a well justified causal research design no doubt, and not just seeing there's a correlation and asserting the causality runs in one direction... 🤔
October 7, 2025 at 6:30 AM
A conclusion reached by a well justified causal research design no doubt, and not just seeing there's a correlation and asserting the causality runs in one direction... 🤔
Reposted by Chris Prosser
🚨Hiring a fully funded (3.5 years) PhD for the @ldnsocmedobs.bsky.social to research social media and politics. Candidates should have quantitative/computational skills and/or be interested in content curation/moderation. UK home candidates only unfortunately. www.royalholloway.ac.uk/media/hquftp...
www.royalholloway.ac.uk
September 29, 2025 at 5:21 PM
🚨Hiring a fully funded (3.5 years) PhD for the @ldnsocmedobs.bsky.social to research social media and politics. Candidates should have quantitative/computational skills and/or be interested in content curation/moderation. UK home candidates only unfortunately. www.royalholloway.ac.uk/media/hquftp...
Just spotted this excellently ironic typo in the acknowledgements of a paper I was reading 😂
September 23, 2025 at 9:30 AM
Just spotted this excellently ironic typo in the acknowledgements of a paper I was reading 😂
I made a little R package to handle the faff of assigning party names to party colours when making plots about British elections in ggplot.
I made it for myself, but if you're someone that also works on British politics and uses R, you might also find it useful!
github.com/drcaprosser/...
I made it for myself, but if you're someone that also works on British politics and uses R, you might also find it useful!
github.com/drcaprosser/...
GitHub - drcaprosser/gbpartyscales: Map common party-name synonyms to canonical Great Britain parties and provide ggplot2 colour, fill, shape, and linetype scales with standard labels and sensible leg...
Map common party-name synonyms to canonical Great Britain parties and provide ggplot2 colour, fill, shape, and linetype scales with standard labels and sensible legend orderings. Includes a helper ...
github.com
September 16, 2025 at 11:37 AM
I made a little R package to handle the faff of assigning party names to party colours when making plots about British elections in ggplot.
I made it for myself, but if you're someone that also works on British politics and uses R, you might also find it useful!
github.com/drcaprosser/...
I made it for myself, but if you're someone that also works on British politics and uses R, you might also find it useful!
github.com/drcaprosser/...