Tim Bale’s Blog- ‘Norman Tebbit carried a torch for a “true-blue” politics now embraced by Nigel Farage’, Independent, 8 July 2025
- ‘Why we need to halt “hard right” in its tracks’, The Loop, 10 July 2025.
- ‘Why are Tories suddenly in favour of proportional representation?’, The Independent, 25 June 2025.
- ‘London isn’t a Labour city any more — the three key questions that new polling raises’, The Standard, 24 June 2025.
- ‘Starmer’s immigrant rhetoric and politics of migration’, Anadolu, 23 May 2025.
- ‘Starmer’s winter fuel allowance “U-turn” sets him on a tricky path with backbenchers and voters’, The Conversation, 22 May 2025.
- ‘Nigel Farage has the crowd, but not the plan – and the clock is ticking’, LBC, 3 May 2025.
- ‘Under “Brexit Badenoch”, what is the future of the Conservative Party?’, The Independent, 26 April 2025.
- ‘Brexit and the Conservative Party’, UK in a Changing Europe, 25 April 2025.
- ‘Rachel Reeves needs to change the record’, Linkedin Pulse, 27 March 2025.
Tag Archives: party members
‘What do Britons Want in a Political Leader?’ (with Paul Webb and Stavroula Chrona), Political Insight, 2 December 2024.
In 1964, US Supreme Court Justice, Potter Stewart, famously gave his opinion in a case that revolved in part around what did and did not constitute hard core pornography. ‘I shall not’, he wrote, ‘today attempt further to define the … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Conservative Party, dark-triad, Labour Party, leadership, party members, politics
Leave a comment
‘Wealthy, white and rightwing: the Tory members holding the party’s future in their hands’, Observer, 6 October 2024
The Conservative party is more than just 121 MPs. It’s also tens of thousands of ordinary members. The £39 a year they pay to belong might not entitle them to any real say on the party’s policies, but it does … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Conservative Party, party members, tory-leadership, uk-politics
Leave a comment
‘What makes a good leader – according to Tory members’, House Magazine, 30 September 2024
Whether the Hansard Society’s Audit of Political Engagement, published in the spring of 2019, helped persuade Boris Johnson to get Brexit done “by any means necessary”, we shall never know. But its finding that just over half of respondents believed that … Continue reading
‘UK election: Reform and Green members campaigned more online – but pounded the pavements less’, The Conversation, 27 September 2024 (with Paul Webb and Stavroula Chrona).
It’s party conference season in Britain, a chance for members to meet and talk through their successes and failures from the election campaign – and start talking strategy for the next. Perhaps inevitably after it suffered such a crushing defeat … Continue reading
‘Same difference? Female (and male) members of Britain’s political parties’ (with Monica Poletti and Paul Webb), Democratic Audit, 22 March 2018.
Six out of ten people who belong to political parties in the UK are men, although there are some pretty big differences between parties. There are also some smaller, but nonetheless significant differences between parties’ male and female members – differences … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Conservative Party, Green Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, party members, SNP, UKIP, Women
Leave a comment
‘Where have all the women gone? The Tories have a serious gender problem’ (with Monica Poletti and Paul Webb), The Conversation, 15 March 2018.
The latest findings on the gender imbalance among the rank and file memberships of Britain’s biggest political parties make for worrying reading – particularly for the Conservatives. Over-time comparison suggests that there are now fewer women belonging to the Conservative … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Conservative Party, Green Party, Labour Party, Liberal Democrats, party members, SNP, UKIP, Women
Leave a comment
‘Why women leave political parties’ (with Monica Poletti and Paul Webb), New Statesman, 7 March 2018.
More men than women join political parties. And new research from the ESRC-funded Party Members Project (PMP) conducted by the Queen Mary University of London, and Sussex University suggests that even when women do join, they think and act a little differently from their male … Continue reading
‘Tim Bale: Inside Labour’s massive membership base’, LabourList, 6 October 2017,
People who join political parties are abnormal. Even if we take into account the phenomenal growth of Labour’s grassroots support since 2015, fewer than five per cent of British adults are party members. That doesn’t mean, of course, that people … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party, Labour Party members, party members
Leave a comment
‘Was it the Labour doorstep or the Labour smartphone that swung it for Jeremy?’, UK Election Analysis, 2017, 19 June 2017
Although we need more research before we can categorically confirm that it was ‘the young wot swung it for Labour’ at the General Election, it looks more than possible. And, although their support for Jeremy Corbyn was rooted in more than … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged 2017 General Election, campaigning, clicktivism, Labour Party, party members
Leave a comment
‘The true picture of Labour members and supporters and their election campaigning’ (with Paul Webb and Monica Poletti), Labour List, 16 April 2017
At elections, a good ground game may not be everything but it still means something. In a tight race, it may even mean the difference between a party winning and losing. But, if “boots on the ground” are at least … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged campaigning, Elections, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party, Labour Party members, party members
Leave a comment
Tim Bale's Blog 