A poll conducted by YouGov between 4th and 7th November in four EU countries (a little-noticed poll, perhaps because it was conducted for our own site) showed the significant respect enjoyed by Angela Merkel. We asked the question: “How much confidence do you have in the following European leaders to make the necessary decisions to […]
Beset by an increasing sense of confusion and crisis, the main actors in the Euro drama look dazed. People are wringing their hands and saying: "For heaven's sake sort it out", as if it were just a matter of manly application. If we had a recognisable strategy on Europe, one could refer to it, maybe […]
Sometimes I go a whole week without picking up any political news (or indeed any news at all outside of the business I run). When I then go through my Twitter feed – a small assortment of science, art, economics, football and new media feeds plus a handful of commentaries from my political friends – […]
Who do the Conservatives need to target to win the next election? What is the latest version of Mondeo Man? Actually, David Cameron is doing less well with the opposite sex, so maybe it’s more like Worcester Women, or Soccer Moms? These ‘micro groups’ are beloved of a certain type of pundit, but are they […]
I return to the question of the next election, even though it is far away. Our view of what will happen then determines, to a great extent, what we do now. There is a reverse domino effect which means imagined future events cascade backwards to influence the present. At the moment, Conservatives are calm, almost […]
Conservatives are more radical than progressives. That is the conclusion from poll we published yesterday about desire for major changes in public services. OK, no surprise really, as Conservatives will view 'change' as undoing decades of leftist drift. On average across the areas we surveyed, 42% of Conservative voters, 32% of Labour voters, and 30% […]
It may seem too early to be considering strategies for the 2015 campaign, but today's electoral maths makes an overall a majority a mountain to climb, so if that's the destination, the preparations for the ascent need to be laid pretty soon. There are many who believe a robust majority for the Conservatives is nearly […]
As an employer I should be pleased. The nation’s smartest young people are desperately competing to work for free. And top Oxbridge graduates will bite your hand off to do piece-work for less than £50 a day – even on spec. They need a bit of money, not much pride, and something to put on […]
Will the Eurozone leaders do what cold analysis tells them is right? Or will they dodge and fudge as they try to navigate the contradictions of popular and elite opinion? What kind of leadership – if any – will they exercise? Is real leadership even possible these days? It is not only the current financial […]
Stephan Shakespeare is Co-Founder and Chief Innovations Officer of YouGov. He is also the co-owner of ConservativeHome and PoliticsHome. Next Monday, 22nd February, he hosts a major conference on the Post Bureacratic Age. Read about it here. In this Platform article he explains how Cameron's most under-reported idea can save taxpayers many billions of pounds […]
Stephan Shakespeare is Co-Founder and Chief Innovations Officer of YouGov. He is also the owner of ConservativeHome and PoliticsHome. Most of us interested in politics are relaxing into that end-of-term feeling. Parliament is ready to pack up and we are preparing for our holidays. Not so for David Cameron and his team: a big decision […]
Stephan Shakespeare is Co-Founder and Chief Innovations Officer of YouGov. He is also the owner of ConservativeHome and PoliticsHome. In this piece he writes about the enormous potential of David Cameron’s idea of a ‘post-bureaucratic age’. Most of us live in an online world of constant updates, constant search, constant sharing. We post, we link, […]
Stephen Shakespeare co-founded YouGov and is the owner of ConservativeHome.com. I would like to be able to begin: “As I predicted, Hillary wins in New Hampshire…” Unfortunately I only said that Obama’s lead would be much, much smaller than the polls were indicating, and I made that prediction to friends (such as the editor of […]
Stephen Shakespeare is founder and Chief Innovations Officer of the YouGov polling company. On Wednesday night we had a depressing discussion at Doughty (that is, on 18DoughtyStreet.com, live internet tv). We talked about a Communicate Research opinion poll which showed there was majority support for two propositions: a) that we should withdraw from Iraq immediately, […]
Today David Cameron will be addressing a conference to launch The Network for the Post-Bureaucratic Age. You can read more about the Network here and follow it on Twitter here. In this special Platform piece, Stephan Shakespeare and Janan Ganesh set out the Network's Agenda. Why move beyond the bureaucratic age? The past few decades […]