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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

"Who is Andy Burnham For?" looks at which voters the new PM is winning back based on the groups @thinklabour.bsky.social identified in May: values-driven left-liberals, the economically insecure motivated by material concerns and transactional voters focused on delivery. substack.com/inbox/post/2...

substack.com

Who is Andy Burnham For?

Christabel Cooper, Interim Director of Political Strategy

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Adam Squires @adsquires.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Good, thoughtful, evidence based thread and article on what Labour should do to win urban voters back from Green. Something for most people to agree with / disagree with / be surprised by.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Our @thinklabour.bsky.social report on the Greens challenge to Labour is in the Guardian today. Our diagnosis of why Labour's vote fell in cities is high housing costs for young people, plus progressives worried that Labour doesn't reflects their values. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

Greens just four points behind Labour in urban areas, poll reveals

Exclusive: UK’s Green parties could take 40 seats if result replicated at next election, according to Labour-linked thinktank

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Great cast list for our next ThinkLabs event - Sam Freedman, Jack Straw and Jonathan Jones KC join @thinklabour.bsky.social's Millie Woods to discuss her latest report on whether it is possible to "re-wire" the state. Sign up for "The Lame Leviathan" event here: luma.com/br9vg44k

luma.com

ThinkLabs: The Lame Leviathan · Luma

Building on The Lame Leviathan, join Jack Straw, Sir Jonathan Jones KC, Amelia Wood and Sam Freedman to discuss on the growth of public law and discuss whether…

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

This is such an important point. The government actually delivering in a policy area may not matter to a minority (who are usually very loud on social media) but it is - eventually - noticed by the rest. Pandering to the minority or thinking everything is just about comms isn't always helpful.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 14/08/2026

Just quietly noting that the non-Farage vote in Clacton (36% x 44% turnout) is comfortably higher than the 10% of the constituency electorate needed for a petition to trigger another by-election if Farage is suspended from the Commons for 10 days...

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

Our latest membership polling shows that Labour members are actually *more* likely to think welfare spending is too high than the general public, giving permission for the government to look at reform. The membership wants to win elections, particularly as the alternative is (probably) Reform UK.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

The advantage of being interim Interim CEO of ThinkLabour (for two weeks only!) is that I have made the executive order to bring my lovely greyhound into the office ♥️🐕

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 05/08/2026

@thinklabour.bsky.social Labour membership polling written up in the Guardian today. The current Labour membership turn out to be surprisingly pragmatic about difficult issues like welfare and defence. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

Labour members ‘have tougher view on welfare than you might think’, poll suggests

Survey finds party members see health, the economy, cost of living and climate crisis among biggest challenges

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

What have Josh Widdecombe, driving tests and the cost of living got to do with each other? Find out in @thinklabour.bsky.social's new blog.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Deciding whether kids are "academic" or "technical" at an early age is going to work out particularly badly for boys, who are generally later developers and where stereotyping is likely to push them towards the non-academic path.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Labour's headline voting intention is recovering. This pre-dates Burnham becoming PM, but as his victory became inevitable we've seen polls putting Labour within touching distance of Reform. Crucially, this appears to be a consolidation of the progressive vote, rather than gains from Reform.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Our first focus groups on Andy Burnham with Labour considerers with a spectrum of views. Interesting North/South divide - Southerners simply know less about him. There's hope he'll be more representative of "Labour values" than the previous government – will be important that he lives up to that.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

My debut on the No Sacred Cows podcast, talking about my favourite subject - the fragmentation of the electorate and how Labour might put it back together again (in which I am told I sound almost optimistic!)

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

For anyone with even a passing interest in polling, this is a fantastic resource, created by @cwp-weir.bsky.social, Research Manager at @thinklabour.bsky.social, which collates all the latest public headline polling, but also pulls out demographic detail from the tables. www.pollingpolis.co.uk

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 10/07/2026

This is a good and necessary first step in repairing Labour's relationship with the Muslim community. But the mistakes over Gaza reflect broader problems, including a sense that Labour hasn't done enough to stand up for ethnic minorities against the hard right. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

Andy Burnham apologises for Labour’s stance on Gaza and says it ‘didn’t get it right’

Exclusive: PM-in-waiting says party must ‘do better’ in approach to Middle East and he will put more pressure on Israel

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

The entire house buying process needs to be digitised and handled by AI agents because the fact that a solicitor failing to read an email for a week or a dispute about what colour something is shaded on a lease plan or an estate agent not chasing up, can cause a sale to fall through is ridiculous.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 27/06/2026

There's a trend among the liberal commentariat to say the UK would be better off in the EU but it's going to be terribly, terribly difficult to rejoin and it will be controversial with the public, so we can't . While criticising Starmer for taking the same attitude to every other difficult decision.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Extraordinary credit to Sadiq Khan for pushing through this deeply controversial policy. This is what can happen when politicians are prepared to stick to their principles.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Was on Times Radio yesterday making the point that Burnham won big in Makerfield mainly because he was so successful at consolidating the progressive vote and turning out people who hadn't viewed in the locals and less because he has a magic appeal to Reform voters.

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ThinkLabour @thinklabour.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

A remarkable Labour win last night. The real lesson of Makerfield? In our latest substack, Christabel Cooper explains why rebuilding a larger progressive coalition, while persuading more transactional voters that Labour can stand up for them and deliver in office is the path to beating Reform.

thinklabour.substack.com

The real lesson of Makerfield

Christabel Cooper, Director of Research

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

It is extremely important that Labour understands that the movement of voters between Lab and Ref was not the crucial factor, it was consolidation of the anti-Ref vote and Lab voters turning out in droves. Otherwise Burnham will make the same mistakes as Starmer in targeting only one set of voters.

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Will Jennings📉🗳️ @drjennings.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

Absolutely fascinating polling by @christabelcoops.bsky.social @thinklabour.bsky.social. Says a lot about the (mis)perceptions of voters - and the cues they use to evaluate the social background of politicians.

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Fintan Smith (Mac Gabhann) @fintan-smith.bsky.social · 14/06/2026

NEW from @convergent-opinion.bsky.social Labour 12pts ahead in Makerfield, with Kenyon's sexist comments actively costing Reform votes Lab: 49% Ref: 37% Res: 5% Grn: 5% Other 5% 525 adults, 2-12 June 2026

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

If there had been a crucial by-election in, say, Bristol - I wonder if the Westminster commentariat would be quite as keen on playing endless vox pops when people might be complaining about Gaza, student loans and that Labour isn't standing up enough against the far right.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

And last week we had the "two tier policing" discussion when there is no actual evidence of this phenomenon (other than police continuing to stop and search brown people at a disproportionate rate).

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

Really worth reading @thinklabour.bsky.social's new political economy piece. It sees technology as an engine of growth but in order to save social democracy not ignore it, as Blair's essay did. It proposes a bigger state, but one that stays in its lane and lets business get on with what it's good at

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Maybe we should ban men from social media.... 🤔

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Feels like I'm going a bit mad. Much of the commentary claims the guidance says police shouldn't treat people equally. It actually says they don't always have to treat everyone the same, with the explicit aim of achieving equal outcomes. Treating different people differently is...er... common sense.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 05/06/2026

Was a pleasure to chat to @pimlicat.bsky.social and @sturdyalex.bsky.social about my report "Who Is Labour For?", which argues that Labour has treated its values-based voters transactionally, and attempted to appeal to right-leaning transactional voters on the basis of values. This hasn't worked.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

My debut on Quiet Riot discussing the tragic Henry Nowak case. Seems clear that the far right Restore party is doing to Reform, what Reform did to the Tories, ie pushing them further right, hence Farage's awful language in this case. But this simultaneously puts at risk their more moderate voters.

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James Austin @jamesdaustin.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

Helpful poll which (as with every other bit of data) shows the challenge Labour faces But, combining with @christabelcoops.bsky.social work, you can sort of see a path through if you squint Populist/transactional on economics/tech/FP, socially liberal on culture, quietly competant on immigration

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 30/05/2026

Aside from anything else, the vast majority of the Makerfield voters who would die on a hill about building in fields will be among the 55% who would never consider voting for Andy Burnham anyway

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Sunder Katwala (sundersays) @sundersays.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Key finding in this new research is that Muslim voters more contested & more fragmented - less of a bloc, not more of a bloc. A more accurate discourse if media + all parties were to pay more attention to age, education, geography,gender dynamics within minority groups as well as the majority

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Dan Mead @danmead.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

This work by @christabelcoops.bsky.social and @fintan-smith.bsky.social gives us novel and rigorous insights into a group of voters that is normally very hard to reach in traditional surveys. They're both too modest to blow their own horn but I'll do it for them

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Ian Dunt @iandunt.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

If you want to read something genuinely thoughtful about Labour's future, try this. A single paragraph contains more interesting ideas than all 5,000 words of Blair's nonsense.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 27/05/2026

The reactions to this are mainly focused on the move to the right, but what's really striking in reading Blair's essay in full, is how little Labour's most electorally successful politician understands the current electorate. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

Tony Blair tells Starmer and rivals: abandon net zero and move closer to Trump

In highly unusual intervention, ex-PM says his party’s ‘almost infinite capacity for self-delusion’ makes it likely to lose next election

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Dan Mead @danmead.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

The battle of ideas has started in Labour and social care is back on the news agenda. This is another area where "incremental change won't cut it". In @arguablymag.bsky.social I argue to unlock social care reform, only a "big bang" approach will work

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Dan Mead @danmead.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

As David says, crime is a really important issue for voters, particularly in post industrial towns. In Burnley, shoplifting has increased way more than the average in England.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Me for @labourlist.bsky.social today on Labour's electoral coalition in which I argue that the government's current attempts to hold together a broad group of voters is not succeeding. labourlist.org/2026/05/who-...

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David Klemperer @dmk1793.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Really excellent report here from @christabelcoops.bsky.social and @danmead.bsky.social on the politics of post-industrial towns - covering both how Labour can win them, and what a politically and economically credible future for them could look like (spoiler: it's becoming like Reading)

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Gaby Hinsliff @gabyhinsliff.bsky.social · 16/05/2026

Looong week so only just got round to this @christabelcoops.bsky.social analysis of who Labour’s lost & where to pitch to get them back (economically left, socially liberal). Clarity across labour now that chasing Reform isn’t the answer but …https://thinklabour.co.uk/thinking/who-is-labour-for

thinklabour.co.uk

Who Is Labour For? • ThinkLabour

ThinkLabour is a think tank working at the heart of British politics to support the Labour movement with research, strategy, and policy development.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Whoever ends up leading Labour will face the same existential question after the local elections: how does Labour rebuild a coalition broad enough to win again? I argue Labour should be clearer that it is an economically left-leaning and socially liberal party. thinklabour.co.uk/thinking/who...

thinklabour.co.uk

Who Is Labour For? • ThinkLabour

ThinkLabour is a think tank working at the heart of British politics to support the Labour movement with research, strategy, and policy development.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 14/05/2026

For an Opposition, the position you take is important given you can't control the status quo and you want to avoid being the "scary' alternative. But astonishing how many people in a governing party don't see policy outcomes as a serious part of their political strategy

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Since everyone (including the voters) have forgotten about the Tories it's worth highlighting that some of Labour's major losses to Reform are partially the result of the collapse in the Cons vote share In Tameside: Lab -30 pts vote share lost 16 seats Con -27 pts vote share, only lost 2 seats

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

I suspect the problem is not absolute deprivation but disappointed expectations - both for the young and for the average 55 yo Reform voter who doesn't have the gold plated early-retirement enabling pension of older Boomers, who own low value houses in fairly run down areas they can't move from.

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Christabel Cooper @christabelcoops.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

If Trump had walked away a lot earlier he could have claimed the victory his ego needs - killing the Ayatollah and degrading Iran's military, while Iran would have got what it wanted - establishing its stranglehold on Hormuz as a credible deterrent to further attacks. But he didn't. And here we are.

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