Peter McLeod
@mcleodp.bsky.social
Opinion polls and focus groups, UK and elsewhere.
Reminder that to follow the Norway playbook you need to appoint Tony Blair as Chancellor.
Cabinet this morning discussed centre-left revivals in Australia, Norway and Canada as inspiration for Labour
There must “keep a relentless focus on the cost of living, show relentless delivery of change people can feel and bring relentless clarity to drawing the choice ahead”, the PM said
There must “keep a relentless focus on the cost of living, show relentless delivery of change people can feel and bring relentless clarity to drawing the choice ahead”, the PM said
January 7, 2026 at 10:00 PM
Reminder that to follow the Norway playbook you need to appoint Tony Blair as Chancellor.
Then: HL2Ep2; now... Probably Stalker SoC.
...aaaand we're back! It's the Big One
Quote this with your favourite game NOW that was released in 2007, and what your favourite was THEN (if you had one)
Localisations/early access count, remasters/ports don't. Remakes depend.
Two-way ties count.
Refresher list: backloggd.com/games/lib/po...
Quote this with your favourite game NOW that was released in 2007, and what your favourite was THEN (if you had one)
Localisations/early access count, remasters/ports don't. Remakes depend.
Two-way ties count.
Refresher list: backloggd.com/games/lib/po...
December 26, 2025 at 9:19 PM
Then: HL2Ep2; now... Probably Stalker SoC.
Elden Ring by a distance, then and now. A colossus, a landmark.
Quote this with what you would have said your game of the year was at the end of 2022, if you had one, and what you would say your favourite game of 2022 is now, if it differs
Localisations and early access count, remasters don't. Remakes depend
Full refresher: backloggd.com/games/lib/po...
Localisations and early access count, remasters don't. Remakes depend
Full refresher: backloggd.com/games/lib/po...
December 18, 2025 at 6:54 PM
Elden Ring by a distance, then and now. A colossus, a landmark.
Many thanks to NYT connections for the free publicity. Check out my blog! www.hold-sway.com/blog
December 12, 2025 at 11:58 AM
Many thanks to NYT connections for the free publicity. Check out my blog! www.hold-sway.com/blog
Time to re-promote this week's blog post: on how to read polls that tell you a majority of the public support any given policy.
New blog post: the trouble with issue and policy polls.
www.hold-sway.com/blog/the-tro...
www.hold-sway.com/blog/the-tro...
The trouble with issue and policy polls — Hold Sway Insight & Strategy
There are three staples in the diet of the British poll watcher: voting intention, leader ratings, and policy/issue analysis. Spend a few weeks following the outputs of YouGov, Survation and the rest ...
www.hold-sway.com
December 5, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Time to re-promote this week's blog post: on how to read polls that tell you a majority of the public support any given policy.
New blog post: the trouble with issue and policy polls.
www.hold-sway.com/blog/the-tro...
www.hold-sway.com/blog/the-tro...
The trouble with issue and policy polls — Hold Sway Insight & Strategy
There are three staples in the diet of the British poll watcher: voting intention, leader ratings, and policy/issue analysis. Spend a few weeks following the outputs of YouGov, Survation and the rest ...
www.hold-sway.com
December 3, 2025 at 6:16 PM
New blog post: the trouble with issue and policy polls.
www.hold-sway.com/blog/the-tro...
www.hold-sway.com/blog/the-tro...
As I was saying on my new blog just last week:
![Text from blog, incl: "we should expect consolidation to take place on the right... [e.g.] a pact or alliance, as when the Brexit Party stood aside for the Tories in many seats at the 2019 election."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:i7qjpnfplfa4pmgzvjc4esrq/bafkreie4gj2qrfrjjvzbsmaxasbwrxui2k75nf37g4h3gowp2ols5i775i@jpeg)
December 3, 2025 at 8:35 AM
As I was saying on my new blog just last week:
Reposted by Peter McLeod
Rightly lots of debates about growth this weekend - rightly because it was low productivity growth that saw wages entirely flatline during the 2010s.
November 30, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Rightly lots of debates about growth this weekend - rightly because it was low productivity growth that saw wages entirely flatline during the 2010s.
Reposted by Peter McLeod
Look, I’m a union MP. I want the employment rights bill in full. But I am also a pragmatist. Unions sat round the table with business and ministers and hammered out a compromise which means protections from unfair dismissal come in from six months not two years and we get Royal Assent by Christmas
November 29, 2025 at 10:52 AM
Look, I’m a union MP. I want the employment rights bill in full. But I am also a pragmatist. Unions sat round the table with business and ministers and hammered out a compromise which means protections from unfair dismissal come in from six months not two years and we get Royal Assent by Christmas
Reposted by Peter McLeod
I have worked to end the two child limit ever since the day I was elected. Today this Labour govt acted to give every child the best start in life.
5,540 children in Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley will be out of poverty immediately. This is what a Labour government is for 😍
5,540 children in Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley will be out of poverty immediately. This is what a Labour government is for 😍
November 26, 2025 at 1:40 PM
I have worked to end the two child limit ever since the day I was elected. Today this Labour govt acted to give every child the best start in life.
5,540 children in Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley will be out of poverty immediately. This is what a Labour government is for 😍
5,540 children in Tipton, Wednesbury and Coseley will be out of poverty immediately. This is what a Labour government is for 😍
Still a few hours until the budget, why not have a read of my first blog post, on Labour's target voters?
www.hold-sway.com/blog/labour-...
www.hold-sway.com/blog/labour-...
November 26, 2025 at 10:26 AM
Still a few hours until the budget, why not have a read of my first blog post, on Labour's target voters?
www.hold-sway.com/blog/labour-...
www.hold-sway.com/blog/labour-...
Started a blog, beginning with some discussion of Labour's target voters.
www.hold-sway.com/blog/labour-...
www.hold-sway.com/blog/labour-...
Why Labour needs to win voters from the right — Hold Sway Insight & Strategy
Labour won’t win if it only targets progressive voters
www.hold-sway.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:49 PM
Started a blog, beginning with some discussion of Labour's target voters.
www.hold-sway.com/blog/labour-...
www.hold-sway.com/blog/labour-...
Real pleasure to join Benedict for the latest episode of his excellent podcast!
Dive into the maths defining Labour’s election strategy with polling expert @mcleodp.bsky.social
politicaladvertising.co.uk/2025/11/13/i...
politicaladvertising.co.uk/2025/11/13/i...
Inside the Numbers with Labour’s Polling Pro Peter McLeod
I recently had the immense pleasure of interviewing Peter McLeod, founder of Hold Sway, a research, insight and strategy agency, and a veteran of Labour’s 2015 and 2024 general election campa…
politicaladvertising.co.uk
November 13, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Real pleasure to join Benedict for the latest episode of his excellent podcast!
This is a really interesting analysis but I don't think it's quite the debunking of Labour's strategy that it claims to be. The premise is that strategists believe people who've shifted Lab->Reform since GE24 have different characteristics in marginal constituencies than elsewhere.
A month ago I looked at what I called Labour's midlife crisis- an obsession with chasing socially conservative Reform-curious voters and ignoring groups of disaffected voters with social attitudes much closer to Labour voters. But some people thought there was method in their madness. Was there? 1/n
November 12, 2025 at 4:39 PM
This is a really interesting analysis but I don't think it's quite the debunking of Labour's strategy that it claims to be. The premise is that strategists believe people who've shifted Lab->Reform since GE24 have different characteristics in marginal constituencies than elsewhere.
This is good. Shows humour working at 2 levels: 1) a signal that you're smart, confident, charismatic and authentic; 2) a tool you can use to launch attacks without seeming mean, and divert without seeming slippery.
I had enormous fun writing this piece over the half term break for @thetimes.com Why humour is the superpower of politics. Featuring polling from @focaldata.bsky.social and @ipsosintheuk.bsky.social
Why we should pay more attention to political humour @jameskanag.bsky.social
www.thetimes.com/article/8bf3...
www.thetimes.com/article/8bf3...
October 31, 2025 at 1:10 PM
This is good. Shows humour working at 2 levels: 1) a signal that you're smart, confident, charismatic and authentic; 2) a tool you can use to launch attacks without seeming mean, and divert without seeming slippery.
There are many, many ways of dressing up your "the voters are stupid" point of view, and this is among the more creative, but it's still that.
I’ve been thinking a lot about a new kind of polling I’d like to see. We have polling that measures public opinion, which is obviously important, but I’d love to see a little more empirical work on public knowledge: what do voters know about politics and policy?
October 29, 2025 at 9:58 PM
There are many, many ways of dressing up your "the voters are stupid" point of view, and this is among the more creative, but it's still that.
This is what happens when you think you're Gandalf but you're actually Saruman. NB we also know who Sauron is here (he controls the palantiri).
Elon Musk: "It is time for the English to ally with the hard men, like Tommy Robinson, and fight for their survival or they shall surely all die" 29th October 2025. 2 million views in its first hour.
October 29, 2025 at 12:17 PM
This is what happens when you think you're Gandalf but you're actually Saruman. NB we also know who Sauron is here (he controls the palantiri).
Horrifying to learn that I was born within 4 days of RJ.
The chances that Robert Jenrick *literally* went to "more than a few football matches in the away end" at Villa Park *in the 1980s* (ie, before his 8th birthday on 8.1.1990) are vanishingly small to non-existent. (He may have been in the away end at Villa Park as a child or teenager in the 1990s)
October 18, 2025 at 10:18 AM
Horrifying to learn that I was born within 4 days of RJ.
Hold Sway polling for the TUC here!
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Wealth tax needed to help working people and avoid threat from Reform, says union chief
Exclusive: Paul Novak says Rachel Reeves should ‘stay the course’ on plans for investment
www.theguardian.com
September 4, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Hold Sway polling for the TUC here!
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
www.theguardian.com/politics/202...
Reposted by Peter McLeod
We should be so proud to have an education secretary whose purpose shines through everything she does, who remembers the free school meals kid she was, who believes every child matters, and who acts on it
These kids would quietly have been written off, and it would have blighted their lives. But they haven’t been. Thanks to ministers and teachers and parents who didn’t give up on them.
Together we’re turning the tide on the absence crisis among our kids.
Five million more days in school is the biggest improvement in a decade.
I want to thank not just the parents but the school leaders, teachers & support staff who’ve made this happen.
www.gov.uk/government/n...
Five million more days in school is the biggest improvement in a decade.
I want to thank not just the parents but the school leaders, teachers & support staff who’ve made this happen.
www.gov.uk/government/n...
August 8, 2025 at 11:11 PM
We should be so proud to have an education secretary whose purpose shines through everything she does, who remembers the free school meals kid she was, who believes every child matters, and who acts on it
Feels like a headline from... 2017? 2019 at latest?
Class no longer main dividing line in UK politics, survey shows
Class no longer main dividing line in UK politics, survey shows
Age and education now bigger indicators, according to study, which also shows record support for electoral reform
Age and education have displaced class as the main demographic dividing line in British politics, according to a leading study on trends in public views.
The British Social Attitudes survey, which has run annually since 1983, found that traditional class-based support for parties had diminished. Continue reading...
www.theguardian.com
June 25, 2025 at 8:48 AM
Feels like a headline from... 2017? 2019 at latest?
New data from me, for @tuc.org.uk, on tax. Overall support for several measures inc. a 2% wealth tax, notably shared by 2024 "hero" switchers and with Lab24 now considering Reform.
Voters overwhelmingly back tax on wealthy to protect public services
www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...
www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...
Voters overwhelmingly back tax on wealthy to protect public services
A poll commissioned by the Trades Union Congress (TUC), found the public support tax increases on the wealthy and big businesses by a margin of almost two to one - 58% to 28%
www.mirror.co.uk
June 8, 2025 at 11:12 AM
New data from me, for @tuc.org.uk, on tax. Overall support for several measures inc. a 2% wealth tax, notably shared by 2024 "hero" switchers and with Lab24 now considering Reform.
Am at a handball festival in western Norway. Couple of c. 10 yr old boys just walked by towing a big portable speaker, pumping out Gangsta's Paradise.
Related-ish point. My sample size here is purely my eldest two and their friends: but one thing I’m really interested in is how streaming means that young people listen to a lot more ‘older’ music than they used to. They’ll happily listen to something released in 2025 then something from 1995.
June 8, 2025 at 11:06 AM
Am at a handball festival in western Norway. Couple of c. 10 yr old boys just walked by towing a big portable speaker, pumping out Gangsta's Paradise.
One of the weirder bits of the ERB debate is opposition parties claiming it amounts to a crackdown on pub banter. (Needless to say?), voters find this an odd line of argument to take. Daily Mirror story on Hold Sway poll findings for the TUC here: www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...
Tories accused of 'insulting' voters with desperate pub banter claims
Shadow Business Secretary Andrew Griffith claimed vital legislation to keep employees safe from being harassed by abusive customers was an attempt to 'ban banter'
www.mirror.co.uk
May 13, 2025 at 10:45 AM
One of the weirder bits of the ERB debate is opposition parties claiming it amounts to a crackdown on pub banter. (Needless to say?), voters find this an odd line of argument to take. Daily Mirror story on Hold Sway poll findings for the TUC here: www.mirror.co.uk/news/politic...