Attention polling geeks, politics geeks and students of the world ... what can Taylor Swift tell us about the world of politics? How about Beyoncé? And, sticking with a pop theme, how about Waterloo?

Naomi Smith returns with the second part of her festive Poll The Other One special, this time with Focaldata chief research officer James Kanagasooriam who, as well as being heroically knowledgeable about all things polling, also coined the phrase Red Wall. Yes, *that* Red Wall.

This episode is absolutely chocka with fascinating insights and, as a bonus, it will equip you to drop the following phrases into your political discourse: race depolarisation; zero-sum thinking; culture-nomics.

If that's too geeky-sounding, there's also stuff about Waterloo Station's liberal clientele, the Democrats' religious vacuum and Keir Starmer's sandcastle. I know, the sandcastle has hooked you.

‘Across the West, no political parties seem to do what they say on the tin.’

'Zero-sum thinking was a really interesting trend that came out of this year … if I do well, you do badly.‘

‘It’s a very powerful tool, optimism.’

‘The Lib Dem vote just follows a trainline out of London.’

‘Politicians now know, irrespective of their ideology, that at the end of their four or five years they have to have grown the economy.’

Show Notes

Subscribe to James's splendid Substack, The Political Whiteboard

Check out Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated, a recent paper co-authored by Works In Progress founder Ben Southwood

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With Naomi Smith, Alex Andreou and Kenny Campbell – in cahoots with Sandstone Global.

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