Patrick English

CONSERVATIVE PARTY CONFERENCE 2026 | Governing in a fractured Britain: How should the Conservatives rethink their approach to power? Heading to Birmingham? Join us Monday 5 October at 08:30 with @patrick-pme.bsky.social, Lucy Harris, Tom Skinner, Baroness Finn, and @alexgathomas.bsky.social.

First up at 08:30 on Monday, our event will explore governing in a fractured Britain, and how the Conservatives should rethink their approach to power. We will hear from an expert panel featuring @patrick-pme.bsky.social, Lucy Harris, Tom Skinner, Baroness Finn, and @alexgathomas.bsky.social.

👀As you may have heard by now, the latest @yougov.co.uk MRP is coming out early tomorrow morning! It’s our first intervention since September 2025, when we showed Reform within touching distance of a majority. What will tomorrow’s model show? Set your alarms for 0600 and find out 😉

So how did we get here, with Starmer on the way out after two years? To some extent, it does go back to the beginning. It was not an enthusiastic victory for Labour. Getting rid of the Tories was the top reason people voted for them in 2024, though with their message of 'Change' also resonating.

@yougov.co.uk built the best MRP model of the 2026 Welsh Senedd election, and one of (if not *the*) best model of the 2026 Holyrood elections. I’m very proud of the team’s achievements and YouGov’s continued, worldwide record of election success!

This by @patrick-pme.bsky.social is worth re-upping. Debates whether Lab shld swing left or right miss that most swing voters want the same thing: competent govt that feels like it's doing stuff. Deliverism wld win back votes from both Greens & Reform patrickenglish.substack.com/p/should-lab...

"There is little to no statistical relationship between Reform performance and Labour performance, but a very strong (negative) relationship between Labour and Green performance." @patrick-pme.bsky.social

Excellent analysis from my BBC elections team colleague and YouGov data guru @patrick-pme.bsky.social on what the local elections data tells us about whether Labour is losing more to Greens or Reform. Spoiler alert: its the Greens open.substack.com/pub/patricke...

Some more rigorous analysis from @patrick-pme.bsky.social confirming this earlier mid-results hot take: bsky.app/profile/robf...

I’ve written up a Substack all about how the results from this year’s local elections suggest that the Greens are a bigger threat to Labour’s vote than Reform. We had evidence of this from the polling, and now it’s been reflected in election data. patrickenglish.substack.com/p/local-elec...

BBC Projected National Share of the vote via @patrick-pme.bsky.social, and change from last year Reform 26% -4 Green 18% +7 Labour 17% -3 Conservative 17% +2 Lib Dems 16% -1

Here we go! We at @yougov.co.uk have projected how the race is shaping up in 13 local authorities in the West Midlands, using our MRP model. Labour dropping everywhere, Reform surging in those leave-voting areas, three-way races in Birmingham and Coventry. Sky and the Times featured this morning.

Today we released our first ever MRP projection of London Borough elections. Our central projections have Labour dropping 16pts on 2022, falling to largest party status in just 15 councils. The Greens are set to benefit, with Reform also currently doing well.

We brought to life a brand new type of model for our Danish election projection - Looped Stratified Simulation (LSS) - and it performed very well! Read more about the model and our Danish work in the thread here 👇

To everyone in my timeline discussing high streets, I've got a report out on Tuesday writing up some surveys that we ran with YouGov in 2022, 2024 and 2025 asking people about how they view their local area... the findings may be of interest in various respects! #staytuned #towns

Join Scarlett Maguire, @jameskanag.bsky.social and myself live with @mattchorley.bsky.social from 5 past 3 for our regular @bbc5live.bsky.social Poll Position segment! Do tune in!

The 2025 UK news cycle, in one chart yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

Incredible work by Matt Smith at @yougov.co.uk summing up the most heard news stories of 2025! Check out the whole story & breakdown here yougov.co.uk/politics/art... "Cool" only begins to describe how it feels to see outputs from the AI topic quantifier after I developed it at YouGov last year ♥️

Our @yougov.co.uk data journalism extraordinaire Matt Smith has compiled all news tracker results from 2025 into this stunning graphic This tells us so much about what 'cuts through', how news cycles evolve, and what grabs attention re: flash moments vs ongoing stories yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

The latest @yougov.co.uk data suggests that the British public are in favour of banning trail hunting by a margin of 50%-29%. What's more, this crosses urban-rural divides: 50% of people living in rural Britain want trail hunting banned. 35% think it should be legal.

I'll be on Times Radio for a chat with John Pienaar at 4pm to discuss the latest polling on Britain's relationship with the European Union. Do tune in for one final pre-Christmas appearance from me!

Which *one* news story do Britons say they heard the most about in the last week? (fieldwork 21-22 Dec 2025) Shooting on Bondi Beach: 26% Epstein Files: 19% Immigration: 4% Trump [general]: 3% Criticisms of the government: 3% War in Ukraine: 3% yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

📻🎄Listen out at 3pm today on @bbc5live.bsky.social for the final Poll Position of 2025, with your regular star-studded pollster team of @jameskanag.bsky.social, Scarlett Maguire, and myself kept on track by super host @mattchorley.bsky.social And yes, of course, there will be a festive joke or two

The Appendices for The British General Election of 2024 book are available (for free) under "Back Matter" at link.springer.com/book/10.1007... The first 71 pages are constituency results analysis by John Curtice, @lottehargrave.bsky.social, @patrick-pme.bsky.social, and myself.

Here’s the definitive Budget feedback from the British public: yougov.co.uk/politics/art... By are margin of 48% - 21%, Brits view the Budget as “unfair”. Some individual measures poll well, but as a whole Brits think it will make them, and the country, worse off.

Ahead of the budget, @patrick-pme.bsky.social looks at where public opinion lies Britons think the economy is bad... Bad: 79% Neither good/bad: 15% Good: 4% ...and that the government is managing it badly Badly: 77% Well: 14% yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

I would say this… But this podcast is a must-listen to understand what happened at Conservative Party conference and whether Kemi Badenoch’s stamp duty plan adds up Properly insightful analysis from ace @instituteforgovernment.org.uk colleagues and @patrick-pme.bsky.social @yougov.co.uk

Look out for a #CPC25 Inside Briefing special podcast - the IfG team @drhannahwhite.bsky.social @alexgathomas.bsky.social @tompope.bsky.social are joined by guest @patrick-pme.bsky.social. Landing in your podcast feeds tomorrow. 🎧👀

Latest ITV BarnCymru 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 poll confirms trend seen over last 6 months - neck and neck race between Plaid Cymru and Reform UK for largest party, with Labour falling to even more distant third. Evidence growing of distinct realignment in Wales 🧵

Phillipson and Powell seem pretty well set to get to 80 from here, you'd think. There are still over 250 MPs left to declare. Easily enough for more candidates to make it, theoretically... You'd think most likely third option is Bell Ribeiro-Addy mustering Labour left support but who knows?

🚨🔔 NEW, from me! I’ve taken some time to review the evidence and try to give answers on… 🤔 Are Reform popular with young voters? 🌹 How much ground have Labour with the British youth? ⬇️ Who will benefit most from ‘Votes at 16’, Starmer or Farage? patrickenglish.substack.com/p/reform-and...

This article is very strong on the potential polling and electoral consequences of lowering the voting age to 16. Parties of the left are absolutely dominant among young voters. Labour are most popular. We hear a lot about “young people and Reform” but it’s only a really small minority, in reality.

First @yougov.co.uk‬ MRP since 2024 election shows a hung parliament with Reform UK as largest party. (‪@patrick-pme.bsky.social‬) More, via Opinion Today: opiniontoday.substack.com/p/250626

🚨NEW 🚨 @YouGov have released our first MRP since #GE2024 If an election were being held right now... ➡️ Reform would be the largest party in a hung parliament 🌹Labour would be reduced to 176 seats 🌳Tories would become 4th party ⏫ Gains for Lib Dems, SNP, Plaid, and Greens

Political volatility has been taking us by surprise for a while now. Here’s little exercise to illustrate. Rewind two years and take a look at where the polls were, what people expected, and what they failed to anticipate. You have to go back a while before politics is predictable even 2 yrs out 1/

Winter fuel payments are set to be restored to all pensioners with an income of £35,000 or less Our poll found a plurality of Britons wanted to see more pensioners be eligible for WFPs (44%) rather than a return to all pensioners getting it (33%) yougov.co.uk/topics/polit...

What is happening between Musk and Trump is of course dominating the headlines. But the ongoing struggles that Reform are having keeping their own band together is worth tracking. Reform Chair Zia Yusuf quit today in the third acrimonious party ‘falling out’ in 8 months.

Yes: Reform are leading the polls Yes: Farage is popular among many voters Yes: Reform did very well in the local elections Also yes: Farage is a hugely divisive figure, and will unite voter coalitions *against* him, as well as for He does not win a single @yougov.co.uk Best PM matchup 👇