Why consolidate within blocs? Labour→Plaid switchers: 40% say Plaid better "stands up for Wales", 30% tactical. Tory→Reform: 37% immigration, 25% protest. Different motivations, same pattern: consolidation not conversion.

Current polling shows the scale: Plaid & Reform both ~30%, Labour & Conservatives both ~10%. But crucially, the total size of each bloc hasn't really dramatically shifted. Few voters are crossing ideological divides - they've concluded different parties better represent their existing values.

The evidence: In 2021, Labour dominated Welsh-identifying progressives; Plaid held perhaps a quarter. Today those proportions have nearly inverted. Mirror image on the right: Conservatives commanded British-identifying voters in 2021; Reform has now absorbed most of that support.

🚨 NEW in @bjpols.bsky.social : When Partygate hit Westminster, trust in Scottish politicians increased. Our experiments reveal a "contrast effect" - scandals at one level can make the other look better by comparison. Who lost most trust in Westminster? Scottish unionists. Read now #OpenAccess 👇

Two unpopular governments at both ends of the M4 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

The seat projections are pretty dramatic. Allowing for movement of a few points in many directions: Plaid Cymru ~38 seats, Reform UK ~35 seats, Labour ~11 seats, Conservatives ~6 seats, Lib Dems ~3 seats, Greens ~ 1 🧵

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 🧵

It also visualises for seats are actually allocated in different constituencies and tells us how tight the margins are.

First, and the obvious one, is that it can turn vote shares into estimates of seats in the new expanded Senedd using either uniform or proportional swing. Users can either enter their own numbers or choose from presets of different scenarios

This makes complete sense given who voters do and don't like! Here is a plot of mean 0-10 liveability scores 2024 voters gave to other parties. Labour and Plaid voters like each other quite a lot, whereas Reform voters don't particularly like anyone!

Important methodological context: this represents a single poll, & a new MRP methodology from YouGov not used in Senedd elections before. Wales also traditionally sees fewer high-quality polls than elsewhere so more weight often given to fewer polls

New fun pub - The Authentic A**hole (particularly proud of getting title accepted)

✅ Politicians viewed as authentic when they stick to their positions despite pressure
✅ True even when voters disagree with those positions
✅ Authenticity translates to electoral advantage

tinyurl.com/25us7y7z

Peak example of utter absurdity of university management speak.

Using language of ‘future generations’, ‘co-creation’ and ‘academic synergies’ in a ‘slide deck’ announcing 400 academic job losses at our institution 👌