Tim Bale’s Blog- ‘Polarised and Powerful: Party Members in British Politics’, Political Insight, 18 March 2026.
- ‘Political treachery is a dangerous art. Streeting must perfect it if he wants to wear the crown’, Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2026.
- ‘The two bloc polarisation of Britain’s voters and Party members’, LSE British Politics Blog, 2 February 2026.
- ‘Ahead of seismic local elections, what we know about Reform’s ability to put boots on the ground for the campaign’, The Conversation, 20 January 2026
- ‘Churchill’s defection didn’t kill the Tories. Robert Jenrick’s certainly won’t’, Daily Telegraph, 19 January 2026.
- ‘The ten most surprising facts from the 2024 election revealed’, The Conversation, 15 December 2025.
- ‘Our survey of Green party members suggests Zack Polanski has the mandate to take his party in a more radical direction’, (with Paul Webb and Stavroula Chrona) The Conversation, 3 September 2025
- ‘Even tactical voting will not help Labour survive a Tory-Reform pact’, Independent, 3 December 2025.
- ‘A Reform UK government isn’t inevitable’, Interview with LSE’s Joanna Bale (no relation!), 18 September 2025.
- The memoirs of a whip in love with his leaders’, Political Quarterly, 30 June 2025.
Monthly Archives: March 2026
‘Polarised and Powerful: Party Members in British Politics’, Political Insight, 18 March 2026.
Barely 2 per cent of Britons belong to a political party. Yet this tiny, unrepresentative minority helps decide who gets selected to stand for Parliament, who gets to lead our parties and, ultimately, who gets to govern the country. With … Continue reading
‘Political treachery is a dangerous art. Streeting must perfect it if he wants to wear the crown’, Daily Telegraph, 16 February 2026.
We may never know for sure whether Wes Streeting, as some of his clearly unimpressed colleagues claimed, had a role in persuading Scottish Labour leader Anas Sawar to call for Keir Starmer’s resignation – supposedly as a prelude to the Health Secretary … Continue reading
‘The two bloc polarisation of Britain’s voters and Party members’, LSE British Politics Blog, 2 February 2026.
The idea that the entire UK is engaged in, even consumed by, some kind of “culture war” is overblown. But there is no doubt that topics like Europe, immigration net zero, and the nation’s history (particularly with regard to its colonial … Continue reading
‘Ahead of seismic local elections, what we know about Reform’s ability to put boots on the ground for the campaign’, The Conversation, 20 January 2026
What we used to think of as Britain’s two main parties, Labour and the Conservatives, seem more than happy to postpone as many of this year’s upcoming local elections as possible. Labour insists the delays are needed because of ongoing local authority … Continue reading
‘Churchill’s defection didn’t kill the Tories. Robert Jenrick’s certainly won’t’, Daily Telegraph, 19 January 2026.
On May 31 1904, a high-profile MP defected from the Conservative Party and joined its main rival. Not everyone believed his claim to be driven by principle rather than personal ambition. Yet it took two years and an election that … Continue reading
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Tagged churchill, defection, reform-uk, robert-jenrick, uk-politics
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‘The ten most surprising facts from the 2024 election revealed’, The Conversation, 15 December 2025.
1. Labour lost the campaign Labour won the election but its support fell a lot more than any other party’s during the campaign period. Labour started the campaign 25 percentage points ahead of the Conservatives and ended it just 15 points ahead. … Continue reading
‘Our survey of Green party members suggests Zack Polanski has the mandate to take his party in a more radical direction’, (with Paul Webb and Stavroula Chrona) The Conversation, 3 September 2025
Thanks to the media interest in his election as leader of the Green party of England and Wales, there’s now plenty of information available about Zack Polanski, the so-called “eco-populist” who won a landslide victory over his arguably more moderate rivals. … Continue reading
‘Even tactical voting will not help Labour survive a Tory-Reform pact’, Independent, 3 December 2025.
As the English philosopher RG Collingwood didn’t quite say, “the only clue to what a man can do is what a man has done”. Given that Nigel Farage denied he would do any kind of deal with Boris Johnson’s Conservatives – until, … Continue reading
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Tagged Conservative Party, Nigel Farage, reform-uk, uk-politics
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‘A Reform UK government isn’t inevitable’, Interview with LSE’s Joanna Bale (no relation!), 18 September 2025.
With Reform’s recent success in local elections and a parliamentary by-election, do you think we’re witnessing a temporary populist surge or the beginning of a longer-term realignment in British politics? I’m rather cautious about the idea of a realignment or, … Continue reading
The memoirs of a whip in love with his leaders’, Political Quarterly, 30 June 2025.
Ungovernable: The Political Diaries of a Chief Whip, by Simon Hart. Macmillan. 368 pp. £25.00 It is a truth universally acknowledged that any book purporting to be a revelatory insider account of contemporary British politics must be in want of a … Continue reading
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