I may go on about this a bit... https://twitter.com/UKandEU/status/1277377514541907968

The tl, dr version: both parties are seriously out of touch with their voters, albeit on different issues.

On economic values, Labour are more in touch with their voters and the electorate than the Conservatives...

...but on social values, the Conservatives are more in touch than Labour.

And the poli sci tl, dr is: we can stop teaching May's Law.

My two fave findings.

1. On four out of five of the questions asked about economic values, voters who backed the Conservatives at the polls in 2019 have more in common with every section of the Labour Party than they do with Conservative members, activists and MPs.

2. The average British adult is more socially conservative than the average Conservative MP. Indeed, on these types of issues Conservative MPs have views that more closely align with the average Labour voter than they do their own supporters.

Here's the @redbox version, for those who can't go above 800 words... https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/both-parties-are-seriously-out-of-touch-with-their-own-voters-d75b9nx90

Lots of people sharing the Cons-MPs-out-touch-with-voters-over-economic-values graph. But if you don't also share the equivilent one for Labour and social values, you're really not getting the full picture. So here's both...

Of all the sub groups in the surveys it was Conservative MPs who were the most right-wing when it came to the economy and Labour MPs who were the most liberal when it came to social values. On these issues, they are way out of touch with their own voters.

For those who want the full report, it's here:

https://ukandeu.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Mind-the-values-gap.pdf

Thus far, a lot of the feedback on this has been positive and useful - of the 'have you thought...? ', 'could you test...?' variety.

No doubt it'll turn to shit quickly enough.

I think some of the queries about the precise questions asked are fair enough - although it is important to realise these are batteries of Qs which have been asked for decades to measure fundamental differences between voters.

Sure, maybe they need updating. And if we'd asked different Qs we'd have got different answers (obvs). But given the results, I think it's difficult to argue they are clearly destined for the knacker's yard.

And if we'd asked different questions, we'd have people asking why, and telling us our new ones were rubbish. At one point today, I had people criticising the use of "authoritarian" and saying we should use "conservative", while simultaneously being told the exact opposite...

The only charge I reject completely is the one that says that work like this is somehow about telling politicians they have to shift to the right or whatever. As @robfordmancs and I wrote elsewhere: