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Dylan Difford

@dylandifford.bsky.social

15K followers 290 following 2.1K posts

YouGov data journalist • Elections, polls, voting systems • "I like people, places and things" • [email protected]

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · Aug 9

A bit behind schedule, but how voters moved in the year since the 2024 election.

Labour facing same splintering of the last govt: a significant bloc crossing floor to primary electoral opposition, with a numerically larger chunk moving to opponents on same side of spectrum, plus many 'don't knows'.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 1h

Populism is cross-cutting, in that it can be applied to any 'core' ideology. Fundamentally, the people and elites in both Corbyn's socialist populism and Farage's reactionary populism play the same roles within the ideology, even if articulated for different reasons and for different policies.

Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 2h

"No other party anywhere in the world", except for several other parties in the UK, and every other democracy that has some form of party conference.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 2h

You can question the sincerity of it as held by populist politicians, but rhetorically all forms of populism are at their core about the pure people vs the corrupt elites.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 2h

I mean, yes. Populism is most fundamentally the belief 'the people' (as defined by the speaker) know better than 'the elites' (also defined by the speaker), while elitism is the opposite.

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Reposted by Dylan Difford

Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 3d

It's a remarkably persistent idea that loads of remaining Tories are just waiting to make the switch, but it's just not true. Just 1 in 8 still loyal Tories have an outright positive view of the Lib Dems or would consider voting for them. They're ideologically miles away from the Lib Dems.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 8h

Also, crucially, the voters he's most trying to target (24Con -> Ref defectors) don't particularly dislike Badenoch (being a rare she has a positive favourability rating among), they just much prefer Nigel Farage, and it's hard to see how he changes that balance.

Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 22h

Also, "on what basis" is a perfectly reasonable response to the question. You can admire something in one respect and not do so in many others.

Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 1d

Having been in double-digits, the three-week average for Green -> Other defections (which was clearly a 'ghost' for Your Party) has fallen to just 3%. Safe to say the enthusiasm for Your Party has dropped off.

YouGov @yougov.co.uk · 1d

Latest YouGov Westminster voting intention (5-6 October 2025)

Reform UK: 27% (-2 from 28-29 Sept)
Labour: 20% (-2)
Conservatives: 17% (+1)
Lib Dems: 17% (+2)
Greens: 12% (+1)
SNP: 4% (+1)

yougov.co.uk/topics/polit...

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 1d

Ultimately, if you pay someone to fix a hole in your roof, you don't go "thanks for fixing the hole" if they haven't really started yet, and you'd be a little irritated if they then went "but I have painted your garage door".

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 1d

Many of the 'achievement' policies are also at the legislative or early implementation stages. You can't expect reward for that, when it hasn't actually made a difference yet.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 1d

Rail nationalisation, for instance, is only an achievement if you thinking government ownership is an end in itself. That's the view of very few voters, even those who say they're supportive. They see it as a means to deliver lower fares and better service; without that, it's a *failure*.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 1d

Once again, though, this is the problem with lists of the government's achievements. They're by-and-large secondary concerns, often that haven't been implemented yet, that don't deliver on substantive improvements on cost of living or public services, i.e. what Labour voters felt they were promised.

Adam Payne @adampayne26.bsky.social · 1d

From Peter Kellner's latest substack:

Of 560 Labour voters present and recent past (switched since '24), *not one* said any of the following when asked about gov's best achievements

Some obv will be conscious of these things, but Labour still has a big problem, he writes: "voters aren’t hearing"

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 1d

It's the old thinking "doing popular things is electorally good" rather than "doing good things might make you electorally popular".

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Reposted by Dylan Difford

YouGov @yougov.co.uk · 2d

Political favourability ratings, among Conservative members

Robert Jenrick: 73% favourable
Kemi Badenoch: 70%
James Cleverly: 70%
Rishi Sunak: 66%
Mel Stride: 65%
Jeremy Hunt: 65%
Boris Johnson: 61%
Priti Patel: 60%
Nigel Farage: 53%
Donald Trump: 42%
Liz Truss: 34%

yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

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Reposted by Dylan Difford

YouGov @yougov.co.uk · 2d

A quarter of Conservative members think the party's best realistic outcome for the next election is third place, or worse

Winning a majority: 14%
Winning most seats: 21%
Avoid falling to third place: 34%
Avoid falling to fourth place: 20%
Not being wiped out: 6%

yougov.co.uk/politics/art...

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 2d

Interestingly, the post-1994 Italian voting systems (all forms of mixed-member majoritarian) were chosen to instil a 'British-style' two-party system, though multi-partyism led to a two-bloc system instead. The blue bloc, which is dominated by the various populists, has been more successful.

Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 2d

Italy's on what it's third wave of right-wing populists, after the previous two let their voters down? It doesn't go back in the bottle, just finds a new host.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 2d

Okay, but that's quite a different a question. Plus 19 Con to 24 Lab, while disproportionately don't know, are are not likely to be the most fruitful part of Labour's coalition for the LDs. They are currently skewing heavily (for Lab) towards Reform and are one of the groups least receptive to LDs.

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Reposted by Dylan Difford

Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 3d

Otoh, Labour should be a little concerned that their so far loyal voters are hardly locked in. Less than half think the govt is doing a good job, with particular worry about the economy. Significant numbers are also open to backing the LDs or Greens (indeed, they’re very similar to Lab to LDs).

Chart showing key political characteristics of Labour defector groups.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 3d

It's a few months old, but in Feb, remaining Tories split about 2:1 towards Reform.

Given significant outflows of Tories to Reform since, I imagine it's tighter among the residual loyalists, but can't see a huge upward shift for the LDs - these voters just don't really see them as an option.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 3d

These are the full Labour vote shares by seat type.

The discrepancy is caused by, e.g. in LD to Con seats, you have high numbers of LD voters going to DK, which reduces the total active voter population, inflating remaining share for other parties in those areas.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 3d

That is indeed what the aggregate vote shares in chart show. The point is that aggregative vote changes in a multi-party system are a bad guide for deriving individual voter behaviour! In these four types of seat, Labour's real retention rate negatively correlates with aggregate vote share change.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 3d

This is a good test of the problems with aggregate vote change.

Q: In which type of 2024 constituency do you think Labour’s vote retention rate is strongest?

A: Labour is retaining a much higher proportion of its 2024 vote in Labour holds (52%) than LD gains from Cons (43%).

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 3d

Broadly. Fundamentally, the average Lib Dem voter thinks very similarly to the average Labour voter (except on a few issues), though they do look a little different. If there's a Lib Dem resurgence due to the collapse of one of the historic two, it's not the Tories.

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Dylan Difford @dylandifford.bsky.social · 3d

That said, it is notable that they on average perceive themselves to the left of their view of the Tories, and there are very clear ideological gaps between them and the party (e.g., on environment, US, etc.). It's just they don't consider the Lib Dems to be an option.

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