SpecData

Donald Trump’s favourite President, William McKinley, added Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the American fief at the turn of the twentieth century. Trump once saw Greenland on a map and reportedly said: ‘Look at the size of this. It’s massive! That should be part of the United States’? Two years later, his language is stronger: ‘For purposes of national security and freedom throughout the world, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.’ Trump’s first proposal to buy Greenland in 2019 was rebuffed by the Danes who have sovereignty over it. For Trump, this is not just about military bases – US

Uh oh. Labour’s first six months in government haven’t gone quite as swimmingly as Sir Keir Starmer might have hoped and poll after poll has reflected the growing dissatisfaction with the incumbent government. The latest data dump– by pollsters More in Common – now reveals that the Conservatives are leading Labour by a point, with a quarter of Brits backing Kemi Badenoch’s boys in blue. How very interesting. The voting intention survey shows the Tories leading Labour by a point, while Starmer’s army is tied on 24 per cent with Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. The results of this latest canvassing, which was carried out between the 10-13 January, follows yesterday’s

The new year is off to a bad start for Kemi Badenoch’s Tories. The latest update to The Spectator data hub’s poll tracker shows that – on average – Reform have just overtaken the Conservatives to become the second-placed party in British politics. As Steerpike reported this morning, YouGov’s first Westminster voting intention poll since the July election revealed that, while support for Starmer’s army has dropped nine points since polling day, Nigel Farage’s Reform has seen support rise by ten points. Combine that with the Tories dropping two points, and The Spectator poll tracker – which looks at the average of all political polling – puts Reform in second

Mr Steerpike was interested to read over the Christmas break that young people are currently flocking to join China’s civil service, attracted by the job stability it offers compared to the volatile private sector, and seeking to escape the country’s relatively high youth unemployment.  According to the Reuters piece, the civil service is still seen by young people as an ‘iron rice bowl’, or job for life. Readers may be reminded of our own ‘Rolls-Royce’ civil service, where even the most incompetent bureaucrats are shuffled between departments rather than ever fired – the ‘iron hot desk’, perhaps. But Mr S was struck by one part of the Reuters piece in

Dear oh dear. There’s more bad news for the Labour lot as new polling by More in Common for LBC has revealed that a quarter of those who backed Sir Keir Starmer’s party in last year’s election now regret their decision. After the events of the last six months – from freebie fiascos to cronyism rows to unpopular policy decisions – Mr S can’t say he’s all that surprised… The latest poll shows that 24 per cent of all Labour voters surveyed regret supporting Starmer’s army, with a staggering third of this aged between 60-74 years old suffering from a serious case of buyer’s remorse. Similar frustration can be seen

Labour’s crackdown on people smugglers comes as New Year’s Day Home Office figures show the number of small boats crossing the English Channel increased by a quarter on 2023. A staggering 36,816 people were recorded as having made the journey on small boats in 2024, with the last group of just under 300 people arriving on 29 December. Good heavens… The figures reveal a 25 per cent increase on the previous year, in which 29,437 people took on the Channel to get to the UK – although 2022 remains the busiest year on record, with a whopping 45,774 arrivals onto British shores. In fact, the latest figures take the total

It’s been an eventful year in British politics, with a snap general election and multiple leadership contests keeping political journalists across the country busy. And how have political party leaders fared? With the help of the Spectator’s data hub, Mr S has examined which party leaders, both north and south of the border, have had the best (and worst) 2024. At the start of the year, hapless Humza Yousaf was forced to step down as First Minister after he rather abruptly ended his government’s coalition agreement with Patrick Harvie’s barmy army. The SNP establishment became rather concerned about the prospect of yet another leadership race – given just how unedifying

Another day, another bit of bad news for Sir Keir Starmer. A new Ipsos poll carried out between 27 November and 4 December has revealed that dissatisfaction with the Labour leader has reached a staggering 61 per cent – his worst rating as leader of the lefty lot. Good heavens… It’s not just Sir Keir struggling with unpopularity – overall unhappiness with the Labour government remains rather high too, with a whopping 70 per cent of Brits registering their dissatisfaction with the party in charge. And voters are feeling rather bleak about the future too, with two thirds of poll participants admitting they expect the economy to get worse over the

When Keir Starmer announced his ‘measurable milestones’ yesterday, he called them ‘the most ambitious and credible programme for government in a generation’. But are they really so ambitious? Many of them sound remarkably similar to the missions in the Conservatives’ Levelling Up white paper, published just under three years ago – only less detailed and lacking a focus on improving the worst-performing areas of the country. Starmer has six milestones compared with the white paper’s 12 missions and 51 metrics. On living standards, Starmer promised that they will be ‘higher in every region of the country’. Which sounds very much like the white paper promise that ‘pay, employment and productivity will

While all eyes were on the Prime Minister’s big ‘plan for change’ announcement today, the government also chose this morning to release some new data to the public. One of the reports published today includes the latest Prevent stats – and they paint a rather interesting picture. Between March 2023 and 2024, there were a staggering 6,922 referrals to the programme which when broken down reveal an uptick in cases being referred due to ‘Islamist concerns’, a rise of over 130 from the previous year. How very interesting… The gap between referrals for extreme right wing behaviour and Islamist concerns has narrowed notably in the year ending March 2024, with