Tim Bale’s Blog- ‘Will Nigel Farage overtake the prime minister as the U-turn leader?’, Independent, 2 April 2026
- ‘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.
Tag Archives: Conservative Party
‘DEBATE: Does Theresa May’s failure to win a majority lay the path for another election before the end of the year? YES’, CityAM, 12 June 2017
Unless Theresa May surprises us all and makes the DUP “a big, open, and comprehensive offer” (copyright D. Cameron, 2010) of a full-blown coalition, then we’re going to see the Conservatives try to run a minority government dependent on Ulster Unionist support … Continue reading
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Tagged 2017 General Election, Conservative Party, DUP, Minority Government, Theresa May
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‘Forget culture wars, the election was about power, cash and opportunity’, Observer, 11 June 2017
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,” wrote Wordsworth, “but to be young was very heaven!” OK, maybe that’s going a little too far, especially if you didn’t get a wink of sleep on Thursday night. But still. If … Continue reading
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Tagged 2017 General Election, Conservative Party, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party, Theresa May
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‘The Conservatives have a leadership decision to make’, Financial Times, 9 June 2017
The Conservative party is, infamously, an autocracy tempered by assassination. If they win elections, or look like winning them, Tory leaders can do pretty much what they want. If they lose them, they are toast. If we were living in … Continue reading
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Tagged 2017 General Election, Conservative Party, DUP, Minority Government, Theresa May
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‘Forward Together: What the Tory manifesto says about Europe’, UK in a Changing Europe, 21 May 2017
Ah, Hear’Say! Not ‘hearsay’, as in stuff that you can’t really substantiate, but Hear’Say – the reality-TV band who went up like a rocket and down like a stick at the beginning of the noughties. Even if you can’t remember … Continue reading
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Tagged 2017 General Election, Conservative Party, EU, Europe, Manifesto, Theresa May
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‘After an enormous victory in local elections, should the Tories fear voter complacency in the General? No’, CityAM, 8 May 2017
If your team is 3-0 up at half-time, then you can be fairly confident that you’re going to pull off an easy win. But even so, you need to guard against complacency. Remember the 2005 Champions League final, when the … Continue reading
Theresa May’s offer on ‘workers’ rights’: how does it stack up against past Tory governments?
Most Conservative governments in the 20th century couldn’t really be said to have positively increased workers’ rights. Indeed, some of them actually eroded them – most obviously the Thatcher government but also, one could argue, the Baldwin government (with its post- … Continue reading
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Tagged Benjamin Disraeli, Conservative Party, Theresa May, workers' rights
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‘A Conservative secret weapon at the last election – the non-members who worked for victory’, ConservativeHome, 2 May 2017
With local elections only a few weeks away, the Conservatives, like the nation’s other political parties, will be relying on their activists to do the on-the-ground campaigning that can occasionally make a difference between winning a seat or even a … Continue reading
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Tagged campaigning, Conservative Party, Conservative Party members, Elections, party members
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‘The Conservatives who threatened to vote UKIP. All mouth and no trousers.’, ConservativeHome, 19 March 2017
So much has happened in politics since the summer that it takes a bit of effort to remember a time when Theresa May wasn’t the Conservative leader and Brexit wasn’t all we ever talked about. But cast your mind back, … Continue reading
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Tagged Conservative Party, Conservative Party members, Elections, party members, UKIP
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‘Truth to tell: populism and the immigration debate’, LSE Politics and Policy, 1 March 2017.
We are living in a world where it’s no longer ‘the economy, stupid’. That’s not to say real wages, the cost of living, and tax-and-spend don’t matter to people anymore. Clearly, they still do. But they no longer trump nearly … Continue reading
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Tagged Brexit, Conservative Party, EU, GAL-TAN, immigration, Labour Party, Migration, Populism
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‘Is the Labour Party in terminal decline?’, CityAM, 4 January 2017
Businesses and political parties both operate in markets where competition can be cut-throat, where mistakes can be costly, where leadership and branding matter, and where, ultimately, the customer is king. Yet there’s one big difference: businesses – even firms so … Continue reading
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