Donald Trump is practically alone in mainstream American politics in his consistent praise of Vladimir Putin and insistence that the United States would benefit from warmer relations with Russia. But that inclination to view Putin more as ally than adversary places Trump squarely in line with the racially infused, conservative-populist […] Read more »
Political Pollsters Reflect On What Went Wrong In 2016
2016 was a year of failure for political polling in several Western democracies. France, Britain and the U.S. were all taken by surprise after polls underestimated the support for conservative presidential candidates and Brexit. Now, pollsters in all three countries are reflecting on what went wrong. All Things Considered, NPR Read more »
Big Data’s Big Misses: 2016 Was a Bad Year For Predictions
Goodbye 2016. The journalists and analysts who work with numbers will not miss you. From the United States to the United Kingdom, the last 12 months will be remembered for missed calls, surprises and upsets that didn’t just beat the odds, but that shattered them – and not just in […] Read more »
Polling Matters: Survey results and the winners and losers of 2016
On this week’s episode of the PB/Polling Matters show Keiran Rob and Leo look back at 2016 and discuss the results from the recent survey of PB/Polling Matters listeners. We discuss what our biggest shock of 2016 was, who the biggest winners and losers were from the year and our […] Read more »
Stop blaming ‘populism’ for everything
The word “populism” is being used to explain almost every trend or event of 2016, including Brexit, the election of Donald Trump as America’s next President, and shifts in French, German, Italian, Dutch, and Austrian politics. … Reducing everything to “populism” is ignoring the real issues that motivate people. To […] Read more »
Phillip Knightley, journalist behind some of the Sunday Times’s greatest investigations
Phillip Knightley, who has died aged 87, was one of the most accomplished reporters of his generation: his craftsmanship underpinned some of the 20th-century’s most memorable newspaper scoops and campaigns. He made a crucial contribution to the Sunday Times’s thalidomide exposé; revealed how the world’s biggest meat retailers, the Vestey […] Read more »