The latest from YouGov:
Last night Burnham officially secured the backing of 349 Labour MPs, and will become Prime Minister in six days. As Tony Blair warned at a summer reception yesterday, “don’t expect to be loved”…
The latest from Find Out Now:
The Burnham bounce is real. Although political honeymoons don’t last the weekend nowadays…
Guido was first to point out the questions over YouGov’s polling methodology when it comes to Reform’s position in their voter intention tables. Since then, the issue has caught fire in the media and in polling world…
YouGov published the first stage of its method in response. From that, Guido’s polling analysts can see who loses and wins from their system that is unlike any other pollster…
Taking last week’s poll as an example (see the table), the bottom line is that the methodology cost Reform -2.4 and Greens -2.1, but Lib Dems went up +2.7 and Con +2.1 on the original raw data. Polling industry sources question this and characterise the process as a heavy intervention…

It’s what pollsters call a model overlay – you don’t just rely on the actual answers and how the poll balances constituencies, but on a layer of analysis which is imposed on that model on top. YouGov looks bang to rights here, it won’t be the last Reform battle with the pollsters…
New polling from More in Common shows Reform has opened a whopping 7-point lead in Wales ahead of May’s Senedd elections:
In this scenario Plaid and Labour wouldn’t even win enough sits to form a two-party government. Plaid would have to cobble together a rainbow coalition horror-show. Labour’s support, meanwhile, has halved in Wales since 2024…
Nearly half of all Labour voters want Starmer to leave Downing Street before the next general election, according to new YouGov polling in the Times. Just wait until they see next week’s Winter Budget…
The survey, conducted last week, found that 23 percent of Labour voters want Starmer to resign immediately, with another 22 percent saying he should throw in the towel before the next election. Only 34% think he should even bother leading Labour into that election, whenever it is…
BMG Research has the first Tory poll lead since December 2021, beating Labour by one point as Sunak finally ceases to be leader. Tells you all you need to know…
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”