Who am I?

My name is Patrick, and I am currently engaged in political and social research at YouGov. That includes all manner of fun things such as the obvious - running public opinion polling - to the little more quirky stuff such as making ‘MRP’ election prediction models and appearing as a floating head on various news channels. As well, I am professional psephologist, working annually on BBC Election coverage and forming part of the joint BBC/Sky/ITV Exit Poll team.

In my previous life, I was a political science academic lecturing at the University of Exeter. I also held research positions at the University of Sheffield, the Institute for Social Research in Oslo, and Sciences Po Paris. I have a strong publication record in the fields of public opinion, political representation, and elections.

I’m also something of an #rstats guy, having taught myself and then gone on to teach undergraduate and postgraduate students the wonders of coding and data analysis in programmes and languages such as Stata, R, and Python.

Why do you want to hear from me?

My insights on elections, public opinion, and (British) politics in general come from a diverse background of research experience, sources close to and heavily involved in parties and their campaigns, and the incredible pool of data that the YouGov panel has to offer.

I already provide quotes, commentary, and analysis for publications such as the Times, Sky News, BBC News and local radio, the I, the Independent, and the Telegraph… so why not come straight to the source?

I’ll give you hot, fresh, weekly content on all things by-elections, vote intention polling, public perceptions on our dear leaders and their entourages, and the stuff you might have missed ‘under the hood’ such as ‘who is winning in the Midlands’ or ‘where are Leavers going’?

I’m also at least a 6/10 on puns.

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