With the EU Referendum coming just thirteen months after a General Election in which the predictions were proven so dramatically wrong, pollsters were more cautious about publicising polls over the course of the Referendum campaign. … Predicting Referendum results is even more difficult than predicting General Election results, and estimating […] Read more »
Calming the storm: Fighting falsehoods, fig leaves and fairy tales
… Now that the Referendum has happened and the storm has somewhat abated the question that demands urgent attention is how any future referendum might be conducted on the basis of a more rigorous – dare we suggest even fact-based – public discussion? … If major broadcasters have a public […] Read more »
Why the Brits do political satire so well — and Americans can barely do it at all
Events in Britain since the June 23 “Brexit” referendum has Americans marveling at the meltdown of a political system we’re accustomed to regarding as far more sober and effective than our own. Yet no fan of Britain’s classic political comedies on TV and the printed page could have been surprised. […] Read more »
The Trouble With Referendums
After Britain’s decision to leave the European Union via popular referendum last month, political turmoil ensued. But don’t let the near-collapse of the British government make you think governments will be dissuaded from using this form of supposedly direct democracy in future: Referendums are more popular than ever. … But, […] Read more »
How remain failed: The inside story of a doomed campaign
… The starting premise of the remain campaign was that elections in Britain are settled in a centre-ground defined by aversion to economic risk and swung by a core of liberal middle-class voters who are allergic to radical lurches towards political uncertainty. They could be identified, profiled and targeted by […] Read more »
Fair Play in a Fact-Challenged Political Landscape
… What happens to the balance between truth and falsehood when an important portion of the national news media hands the political debate over to partisan operatives who, as a rule, skew the facts — or abandon them — in the service of their own political ends or business interests? […] Read more »