If we’ve escaped it this year, this site may not be totally doomed after all

The polling's hard to read because people will support spending when there's no trade-off (e.g. yougov.co.uk/politics/artic…) but it seems pretty clear that a hardline position on strikes was electorally damaging for the Conservatives

🚨 New polling with The Observer This week’s omits Voting Intention again, as we continue to assess our weighting. Starmer’s net approval ratings are -7%, down 10 points from +3 at the beginning of August and down a hefty 26 points from +19% in his first approval rating as PM.

My colleagues analysed 700+ campaign ads that mentioned immigration this year. In one of them the Trump campaign featured five images of people crossing the border (but four of those actually occurred while Trump was president!) washingtonpost.com/elections/inte…

I know NI politics is maybe a bit niche to the base of people who follow me but this is a truly fascinating article by Sam McBride:

Ok, if we’re going to ban smoking outside, can we all do what we should’ve done all along: just stand outside for no real reason because standing outside a club is miles better than being in one

Comparing vote distributions in YouGov's Jan and July MRPs against the results shows the 121 seats that *may* have been implicitly lost by parties in the campaign and few months before, with tactical voting and Reform gains likely costing the Tories dearly.

"[Labour’s pro-Corbyn and pro-Starmer factions] now show levels of mutual enmity that are slightly worse than between Leavers and Remainers" 🚨📊 NEW: David Young on the findings of his recent research on polarisation between factions within parties. ukandeu.ac.uk/labours-factio…

🧵 Two months ago today, we released our final voting intention poll of the General Election. Today we are releasing the findings of our early investigations into where we think our polls did well, and where we want to improve for next time...

🚨 New polling with The Observer Keir Starmer’s net approval ratings are -13%, down 6 points from -7 at a fortnight ago and down a hefty 32 points from +19% in his first approval rating as prime minister.

Labour has done a good job on talking tough and putting the blame on the last govt, but it needs to give voters some hope. Over half doubt Labour's ability to make things better, with concerns over fairness and honesty in the upcoming "painful" budget. theguardian.com/politics/artic…

The latest chapter of the 41st British Social Attitudes report, published today, finds that the proportion of people who think it is important that someone was born in Britain to be ‘truly British’ has fallen from 74% in 2013 to 55% today.

As ever, a must-read:

NEW: The MP in 11th place in the private members bill ballot says he will propose an assisted dying bill.