Sam Freedman

@samfr.bsky.social

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Write about politics + policy on my Substack (http://samf.substack.com). Columnist at Prospect and TES. 'Think-tank guru' according to The Sun.

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Sam Freedman

New post on Starmer’s foreign policy challenges, noting that Uk will be one of the more stable governments in the West but this is of no great benefit when anything they want to do, including improving relations with EU, requires working with others (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/p...

Prime Minister Starmer: welcome to the worldopen.substack.com The global challenges facing the new government

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Many here will have already seen initial post election analysis from @samfr.bsky.social but this is a really good listen from him and Ayesha Hazarika

Anatomy of an Election: are Labour prepared for the challenges of power? — The Power Testovercast.fm July 4th, 2024: the date that Labour returned to power. After 14 years in the political wilderness, Keir Starmer has led the party to a landslide victory. With the keys to No.10 Downing Street in his ...

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Excellent analysis, as usual, from Sam.

New post just out: "On the Edge: interpreting the election result, and the future challenges for all parties" (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/on-the-edge

On the Edgesamf.substack.com Interpreting the election result, and the future challenges for all parties

New post just out: "On the Edge: interpreting the election result, and the future challenges for all parties" (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/on-the-edge

On the Edgesamf.substack.com Interpreting the election result, and the future challenges for all parties

Why does the core tenet of my personality have to be an inability to cope with uncertainty? Argh.

Final pre-election post is out. Dylan Difford on the final polls and how things have moved over the campaign. Plus a lovely map of all my predictions. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/f...

Final Callopen.substack.com Our final pre-election post is written by Dylan and gives an overview of what’s happened to the polls over the campaign, and where we’ve ended up with all the final polls in. There’s loads of fascinat...

Hit 1 million views on the substack since the election started today. Not bad.

Final post of the day What to look out for tomorrow night by me and @beyondthetopline.bsky.social And a bunch of sites and resources to help you interpret the results. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/what-to-lo...

What to look out for tomorrow nightsamf.substack.com Plus all the resources you need to follow what's going on

It's done I've finished previewing every seat in the country. All 650 in this post, with my final predictions. It's 77,000 words long. I need a lie down. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/a...

All 650 seat previews in one placeopen.substack.com With final predictions

New election briefing just out: Previews for all 57 seats in Scotland. A completely different election from the one in England. SNP fighting against all the unionist parties. Lots of very close races. And some future Labour stars. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/s...

Seat Previews: Scotlandopen.substack.com One day to go. And we’re almost done with the previews. Today we have all 57 constituencies in Scotland. As was set out in the post written for us by Mark McGeoghegan earlier in the campaign, there is...

New election briefing out: 27 seat previews for the North East. The Tories won 11 in here in 2019. Will they win any at all this time? Plus how does the opposition gets selected if the Tories + LDs have similar seat numbers? (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/s...

Seat Previews: The North Eastopen.substack.com Plus who decides who the opposition is?

New election briefing just out: The biggest batch of seat previews so far - 51 covering Birmingham, Coventry, South + West Yorkshire. Yorkshire, which is full of marginals, is where the scale of the likely Tory defeat is clearest. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/c...

Cross country: from Birmingham to Leedsopen.substack.com 51 seat previews covering Birmingham, Coventry, South and West Yorkshire

I reckon you could predict with 80-90% accuracy which of the new Labour intake will be ministers in five years based purely on the quality of their websites.

New election briefing just out: A huge batch of seat previews today - 42 covering most of the West Midlands (bar Birmingham and Coventry). Lots of different types of seats + an array of some of the worst MPs around about to lose theirs. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/west-midla...

West Midlands: the seat previewssamf.substack.com 42 of them today...

New election briefing just out: @beyondthetopline.bsky.social looks at the different ways pollsters are handling "don't knows" - it's the difference between 1997 result + wipeout. Plus seat previews for Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire + Derbyshire. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/which-poll...

Which pollsters have got it right?samf.substack.com Plus 29 seat previews covering Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire

New election briefing just out: We have a very useful map from @Dylan_Difford showing where the five MRPs from last week agree and differ. Plus 35 seat previews covering Norfolk, Suffolk, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/m...

Mapping the MRPsopen.substack.com Plus seat previews for Norfolk, Suffolk, Northamptonshire and Leicestershire

Just hit me that Matt Goodwin is our J D Vance. Start with sympathetic stuff about "left behinds" and end up simping for fash-adjacent narcissists.

Turns out having a piece on the BBC website where you're the voice of the pro-VAT on private schools argument does not make you popular at the David Lloyd club.

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If you’re not a subscriber this is free to read, and it’s worth subscribing to, I’ve been paying for a few years now and it’s well worth it. There’s a test embedded which tells you what voter type you are. They’ve not yet got ‘truculent Northamptonian’ as a defined segment, it seems.

New post just out: It's by the god of election analysis himself Sir John Curtice, with colleague Lovisa Moller Vallgarda. They've built a system for classifying voters that offers fascinating insights into this election and the future of UK politics. open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/m...

Mapping Voter Coalitionsopen.substack.com A guest post from Sir John Curtice and Lovisa Moller Vallgarda

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Latest post addresses the claim that all wars end with a negotiation by looking at the 1982 Falklands War, which didn’t. open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/w...

open.substack.com

Every day I've posted seat previews at least one candidate from that day's batch has signed up for a subscription. Makes me smile every time.

New election briefing out First @dylandifford.bsky.social looks at the detail of the many polls being published to explain, more clearly than I've seen elsewhere, exactly what they're saying. Then 26 seat previews covering Cambridgeshire + Essex. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/the-story-...

The story of the polls so farsamf.substack.com Plus seat previews for Cambridgeshire and Essex

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Vivian H

@samfr.bsky.social’s seat by seat prediction email is quite fun for this, including finding out that Oliver Dowden’s opponent is Josh from Gogglebox.

New election briefing just out: A big round of seat previews today. Finishing off the capital by looking at the central London boroughs. And starting on the east of England with two commuter counties - Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/the-city-a...

The City and the Commuterssamf.substack.com Seat Previews for central London, Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire

On a similar theme.... I have a report out with Nesta today on the big macro issues not being discussed in this election options2040.co.uk/capacity-cru...

Did an LRB podcast on my upcoming book "Failed State" and the macro issues not really being discussed during this election. podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

New post out As catastrophe looms for the Tories, Canada 1993 is coming up a lot. So we asked the person at the centre of that defeat what it felt like + why it happened. An interview with Kim Campbell, former Canadian prime minister. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/i...

"I think I disappointed people by not having a nervous breakdown"open.substack.com An interview with Kim Campbell, the Canadian Prime Minister in 1993.

New election briefing just out: Today's post includes @beyondthetopline.bsky.social on the rising Lib Dem vote share and parallels with 1997. And 27 more seat previews covering east London. (£/free trial) open.substack.com/pub/samf/p/t...

The Davey Waveopen.substack.com Plus 27 seat previews for east London

New election briefing just out A very entertaining piece by Dylan Difford on all the records that could be broken by this election (and why). Plus 22 seat previews covering west London. (£/free trial) samf.substack.com/p/broken-rec...

Broken Recordssamf.substack.com Plus seat previews for 22 London constituencies