Steve Akehurst
@steveakehurst.bsky.social
Politics, policy, public attitudes. Work in polling and comms. Director, Persuasion UK. ex- Shelter, civil service and various other things. 🏳️🌈
https://persuasionuk.org/about
https://strongmessagehere.substack.com/
https://persuasionuk.org/about
https://strongmessagehere.substack.com/
Pinned
Steve Akehurst
@steveakehurst.bsky.social
· Oct 29
Ahead of Budget, where do voters stand on tax and the dilemmas facing government?
Big new @persuasionuk.bsky.social report out today on this.
TL;DR as risky as breaching the manifesto is for Lab - failing on public services, cost of living and child poverty is *far riskier* for Lab.
🧵
Big new @persuasionuk.bsky.social report out today on this.
TL;DR as risky as breaching the manifesto is for Lab - failing on public services, cost of living and child poverty is *far riskier* for Lab.
🧵
Merry Christmas to all and here’s to another year in this intensely normal media environment!
December 25, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Merry Christmas to all and here’s to another year in this intensely normal media environment!
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
Quite the chart. www.ft.com/content/30a4...
December 20, 2025 at 7:47 AM
Quite the chart. www.ft.com/content/30a4...
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
Verian’s polling in the 2024 GE campaign was a) by an innovative random sampling method rather than a panel and b) pretty accurate, in that it had a lower Lab number than most.
Westminster Voting Intention:
RFM: 27% (+12)
CON: 21% (-3)
LAB: 18% (-17)
LDM: 15% (+3)
GRN: 13% (+6)
Via @veriangroup.com, 12-15 Dec.
Changes w/ GE2024.
RFM: 27% (+12)
CON: 21% (-3)
LAB: 18% (-17)
LDM: 15% (+3)
GRN: 13% (+6)
Via @veriangroup.com, 12-15 Dec.
Changes w/ GE2024.
December 19, 2025 at 4:16 PM
Verian’s polling in the 2024 GE campaign was a) by an innovative random sampling method rather than a panel and b) pretty accurate, in that it had a lower Lab number than most.
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
Fascinating and beautiful piece of magazine journalism by Kate Mossman on the plane that was nearly crashed by a passenger nine months before 9/11:
The strange fate of Flight 2069
How do you measure the cost of a disaster that didn’t happen?
www.newstatesman.com
December 15, 2025 at 10:19 AM
Fascinating and beautiful piece of magazine journalism by Kate Mossman on the plane that was nearly crashed by a passenger nine months before 9/11:
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
The Bondi Beach Jewish community was gathering to light candles for Hanukkah.
They were targeted because they were Jewish.
They should be alive today.
What we saw today was antisemitism and it was the definition of evil.
They were targeted because they were Jewish.
They should be alive today.
What we saw today was antisemitism and it was the definition of evil.
December 14, 2025 at 3:50 PM
The Bondi Beach Jewish community was gathering to light candles for Hanukkah.
They were targeted because they were Jewish.
They should be alive today.
What we saw today was antisemitism and it was the definition of evil.
They were targeted because they were Jewish.
They should be alive today.
What we saw today was antisemitism and it was the definition of evil.
By coincidence was reading V13 by Emmanuel Carrere when learning of Bondi attack - this Simone Weil quote in it seems v apt today:
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating...
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating...
December 14, 2025 at 9:43 PM
By coincidence was reading V13 by Emmanuel Carrere when learning of Bondi attack - this Simone Weil quote in it seems v apt today:
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating...
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvellous, intoxicating...
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
I found this today (from Peter Kellner/YouGov) which answers part of your query.
December 9, 2025 at 8:40 PM
I found this today (from Peter Kellner/YouGov) which answers part of your query.
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
& there are signs now of govt recognising that. Will it last? Is it too late? Will they cock it up? possibly, but I wanted to write this week about recognising a good thing when you see it rather than immediately jumping to all the reasons it’s not good enough www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Give credit where it’s due: Labour is finally doing things its supporters actually want | Gaby Hinsliff
From tackling child poverty to being honest about Brexit, the party seems to have recognised the growing electoral threat to its left, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
www.theguardian.com
December 5, 2025 at 9:34 AM
& there are signs now of govt recognising that. Will it last? Is it too late? Will they cock it up? possibly, but I wanted to write this week about recognising a good thing when you see it rather than immediately jumping to all the reasons it’s not good enough www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
This is just excellent, every single point is essential to understanding UK politics - and I can’t wait to read the book by @timbale.bsky.social @psurridge.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @robfordmancs.bsky.social
New post just out:
Six lessons from the 2024 election.
And what they mean for the next one.
Covering: Labour's fatal misunderstanding about why they won; effects of a more fragmented system; changes in media/polling.
(£/free trial)
samf.substack.com/p/six-lesson...
Six lessons from the 2024 election.
And what they mean for the next one.
Covering: Labour's fatal misunderstanding about why they won; effects of a more fragmented system; changes in media/polling.
(£/free trial)
samf.substack.com/p/six-lesson...
Six lessons from the 2024 election
And what they mean for the next one
samf.substack.com
December 4, 2025 at 12:56 PM
This is just excellent, every single point is essential to understanding UK politics - and I can’t wait to read the book by @timbale.bsky.social @psurridge.bsky.social @drjennings.bsky.social @robfordmancs.bsky.social
On electoral pacts, 'just for fun' I asked this recently: what if the choice in your area was a candidate from a left alliance (Labour/Green/LD/Plaid/SNP) or a candidate from a right alliance? (Con/Reform)?
+10 lead for prog alliance, narrow margin even in Red Wall.
Via @yougov.co.uk
+10 lead for prog alliance, narrow margin even in Red Wall.
Via @yougov.co.uk
December 3, 2025 at 6:10 PM
On electoral pacts, 'just for fun' I asked this recently: what if the choice in your area was a candidate from a left alliance (Labour/Green/LD/Plaid/SNP) or a candidate from a right alliance? (Con/Reform)?
+10 lead for prog alliance, narrow margin even in Red Wall.
Via @yougov.co.uk
+10 lead for prog alliance, narrow margin even in Red Wall.
Via @yougov.co.uk
With thanks to @luketryl.bsky.social for the inspo on the ther place, here's migration salience and Reform vote share plotted over 2025.
Ok, not one-for-one, but pretty decent positive correlation.
Likewise, anytime economy spikes, Reform vote softens slightly.
Agenda setting matters!
Ok, not one-for-one, but pretty decent positive correlation.
Likewise, anytime economy spikes, Reform vote softens slightly.
Agenda setting matters!
December 1, 2025 at 9:40 PM
With thanks to @luketryl.bsky.social for the inspo on the ther place, here's migration salience and Reform vote share plotted over 2025.
Ok, not one-for-one, but pretty decent positive correlation.
Likewise, anytime economy spikes, Reform vote softens slightly.
Agenda setting matters!
Ok, not one-for-one, but pretty decent positive correlation.
Likewise, anytime economy spikes, Reform vote softens slightly.
Agenda setting matters!
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
the one thing we didn't want to happen
November 30, 2025 at 11:05 PM
the one thing we didn't want to happen
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
Option B! Option B!
Here are the options for how the leadership of Your Party will work, being voted on by members shortly (results tomorrow)
In short:
Option A = single leader (Corbyn v Sultana, most likely)
Option B = A 'collective' leadership, effectively of three non-MP members from the central committee
In short:
Option A = single leader (Corbyn v Sultana, most likely)
Option B = A 'collective' leadership, effectively of three non-MP members from the central committee
November 29, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Option B! Option B!
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
Having watch child poverty rise like a slow-motion car crash since the two-child limit was introduced, sat in meetings up and down the country, in foodbanks, in schools, to work out how to get child poverty down, the idea that this undoing this policy is 'PLP management' is a joke.
It's such a bizarre framing. Labour MPs think taking 450k kids out of poverty is putting the country first! That's why they wanted it to happen! It's not because they personally benefit.
Headline on The World at One just now:
"Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting the Labour Party before the country by ending the two-child benefit cap".
Can we please go back to reporting the actual news, not someone's partisan take on it?
"Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting the Labour Party before the country by ending the two-child benefit cap".
Can we please go back to reporting the actual news, not someone's partisan take on it?
November 27, 2025 at 6:32 PM
Having watch child poverty rise like a slow-motion car crash since the two-child limit was introduced, sat in meetings up and down the country, in foodbanks, in schools, to work out how to get child poverty down, the idea that this undoing this policy is 'PLP management' is a joke.
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
It's such a bizarre framing. Labour MPs think taking 450k kids out of poverty is putting the country first! That's why they wanted it to happen! It's not because they personally benefit.
Headline on The World at One just now:
"Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting the Labour Party before the country by ending the two-child benefit cap".
Can we please go back to reporting the actual news, not someone's partisan take on it?
"Sir Keir Starmer has denied putting the Labour Party before the country by ending the two-child benefit cap".
Can we please go back to reporting the actual news, not someone's partisan take on it?
November 27, 2025 at 1:16 PM
It's such a bizarre framing. Labour MPs think taking 450k kids out of poverty is putting the country first! That's why they wanted it to happen! It's not because they personally benefit.
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
Britain's left-wing government is left-wing www.economist.com/britain/2025...
Britain’s left-wing government is left-wing
An obvious fact. But still an overlooked one
www.economist.com
November 27, 2025 at 8:36 AM
Britain's left-wing government is left-wing www.economist.com/britain/2025...
Tactically I think Reeves made best of a bad situation today - the individual measures were sensible and some good stuff in there.
But we're 4 years from an election not 4 months. Key is whether less pain now (re: manifesto) now means less progress on public services, cost of living etc by 2029.
But we're 4 years from an election not 4 months. Key is whether less pain now (re: manifesto) now means less progress on public services, cost of living etc by 2029.
I think a government in a stronger political position would have been prepared to be bolder at the moment.
November 26, 2025 at 2:02 PM
Tactically I think Reeves made best of a bad situation today - the individual measures were sensible and some good stuff in there.
But we're 4 years from an election not 4 months. Key is whether less pain now (re: manifesto) now means less progress on public services, cost of living etc by 2029.
But we're 4 years from an election not 4 months. Key is whether less pain now (re: manifesto) now means less progress on public services, cost of living etc by 2029.
The two-child benefit cap might have been popular, but consequences of keeping it (rising child poverty) would not be.
And its those Lab would have been punished most harshly on, as @persuasionuk.bsky.social research showed.
Brave but right decision to lift it this far from election.
And its those Lab would have been punished most harshly on, as @persuasionuk.bsky.social research showed.
Brave but right decision to lift it this far from election.
November 26, 2025 at 1:38 PM
The two-child benefit cap might have been popular, but consequences of keeping it (rising child poverty) would not be.
And its those Lab would have been punished most harshly on, as @persuasionuk.bsky.social research showed.
Brave but right decision to lift it this far from election.
And its those Lab would have been punished most harshly on, as @persuasionuk.bsky.social research showed.
Brave but right decision to lift it this far from election.
This daft jewellery story - which turns out to not even be true but proved needlessly divisive on a sensitive topic - happened because bits of Lab are *still* obsessed with briefing right wing tabloids.
But here's thing: nobody reads these outlets anymore. Labour/Reform voters don't. So why do it?
But here's thing: nobody reads these outlets anymore. Labour/Reform voters don't. So why do it?
November 20, 2025 at 10:04 PM
This daft jewellery story - which turns out to not even be true but proved needlessly divisive on a sensitive topic - happened because bits of Lab are *still* obsessed with briefing right wing tabloids.
But here's thing: nobody reads these outlets anymore. Labour/Reform voters don't. So why do it?
But here's thing: nobody reads these outlets anymore. Labour/Reform voters don't. So why do it?
I am very much team ‘you need to reduce the salience of asylum’ - but fixing a manifestly broken system has got to be some part of that surely.
There’s aspects of what was announced yesterday I’m not sure will work, but there’s not enough people on here engaging with the problem itself imo
There’s aspects of what was announced yesterday I’m not sure will work, but there’s not enough people on here engaging with the problem itself imo
What the Home Sec announced today is not the politics of compromise but of being compromised.
Labour has just increased the salience of an issue they will always be outbid on by the right.
Labour has just increased the salience of an issue they will always be outbid on by the right.
@pimlicat.bsky.social: "Multiple studies show that ramping up ever-harsher rhetoric on immigration and asylum never wins over Reform-curious voters. The government would be wiser to make the case for the international institutions and protections we all depend on.”
https://bit.ly/49YBJVD
https://bit.ly/49YBJVD
November 18, 2025 at 12:24 PM
I am very much team ‘you need to reduce the salience of asylum’ - but fixing a manifestly broken system has got to be some part of that surely.
There’s aspects of what was announced yesterday I’m not sure will work, but there’s not enough people on here engaging with the problem itself imo
There’s aspects of what was announced yesterday I’m not sure will work, but there’s not enough people on here engaging with the problem itself imo
This is important and depressing. Key point for me: you cannot understand anything in British politics today without understanding the radicalisation of right-leaning media in Britain and the power X has added to its ability to set the agenda.
The reaction to the Panorama edit has been nothing short of hysterical. Yes the BBC has some impartiality problems. But its biggest isn't the one you think.
New piece from me.
open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
New piece from me.
open.substack.com/pub/goodalla...
The truth about impartiality at the BBC
And the hysteria of the current "crisis"
open.substack.com
November 12, 2025 at 10:03 PM
This is important and depressing. Key point for me: you cannot understand anything in British politics today without understanding the radicalisation of right-leaning media in Britain and the power X has added to its ability to set the agenda.
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
One nice detail that can easily be lost in this graph - even right wingers trust the BBC more than the right wing tabloids
Here’s the same data, but with trust broken down by political views (circles are trust among people on the left, +s the right).
It’s not just that the BBC is widely consumed — it also has solid trust on both left & right, whereas trust in the biggest US media brands is hugely polarised.
It’s not just that the BBC is widely consumed — it also has solid trust on both left & right, whereas trust in the biggest US media brands is hugely polarised.
November 10, 2025 at 5:40 PM
One nice detail that can easily be lost in this graph - even right wingers trust the BBC more than the right wing tabloids
This story currently has more views on the BBC website than the Tim Davie resignation. We are still a country
November 10, 2025 at 11:20 AM
This story currently has more views on the BBC website than the Tim Davie resignation. We are still a country
Reposted by Steve Akehurst
I suspect there's also a strong element here of far too many journalists and BBC managers spending too much time on X and getting a wholly misleading impression of how big a story the Trump edits were. They're excessively influenced by right-wing activist opinion, and particularly US opinion.
The BBC is hopeless at reporting on itself. The idea that a minor, if misleading, edit is the most serious crisis in its history is ludicrous self-absorption, even allowing for the context of a Faragite desire to break it. It's certainly not as serious as the Iraq-Gilligan crisis.
November 10, 2025 at 9:48 AM
I suspect there's also a strong element here of far too many journalists and BBC managers spending too much time on X and getting a wholly misleading impression of how big a story the Trump edits were. They're excessively influenced by right-wing activist opinion, and particularly US opinion.
Great column here as ever from @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social - Gen Xis the key to understanding Reform, Trump etc, not Boomers.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Meet gen X: middle-aged, enraged and radicalised by internet bile | Gaby Hinsliff
Who is driving the populist insurgency? It’s not grumpy pensioners or vulnerable teenagers – it’s my generation, says Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff
www.theguardian.com
November 7, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Great column here as ever from @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social - Gen Xis the key to understanding Reform, Trump etc, not Boomers.
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...