In his latest podcast interview, Nick Cohen talks to doyen pollster Peter Kellner, founder of YouGov, to discuss the current state of British politics and the potential return to a two-party system dominated by Labour and the Conservatives. Peter and Nick talk about how Reform Party support has declined from around 30% to the low 20s due to controversies over racism and financial issues, while Labour has gained under new leader Andy Burnham, reaching 26-28% in polls.

They discuss how the first-past-the-post electoral system creates challenges for multi-party politics, with tactical voting often determining outcomes rather than voters' true preferences. The discussion also examines the Greens' position under Zak Polanski, noting their potential to split the Labour vote despite limited electoral success, and explored whether a pro-European stance could help unite the centre-left and challenge the Conservative Party, which has struggled to recover from its 2024 defeat despite positive media coverage. Peter Kellner explains how the smell of government failures and scandals linger in the noses of voters and that defeated parties typically take about 10 years to recover. Peter says the next Conservative leader likely isn't currently in Parliament, suggesting the party needs to address its internal divisions before returning to power.

Legendary pollster @PeterKellner1 is a founder of the leading polling company, YouGov. Peter's Substack column, The Politics Counter, is a must-read on UK politics and free to access Substack column on the state of UK politics.

Nick Cohen's @NickCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond. You can also watch The Lowdown on YouTube.

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Nick Cohen argues that the Conservative Party's latest obsession with leaving the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is stupid, wrong headed, is deeply damaging to the UK, destroys the basis of our human rights and and replicates the Tories' enduring stupidity in dragging the country out of the European Union, a move which has led to international isolation and is causing huge damage to the economy.

Nick argues against the UK leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and compares this proposal to Brexit and describes it as a nationalist act of folly with severe consequences. Nick says Brexit had already damaged economic growth, GDP, and public services, while isolating Britain from the EU, USA, and China. He argues that leaving the Convention would break cooperation agreements on crime and immigration, potentially jeopardise trade deals, and undermine the devolution settlements in Scotland and Wales. He emphasises that the Convention is central to the Good Friday Agreement that ended a terrible sectarian 30 year-long civil war in Northern Ireland, and notes that the US had previously warned that leaving it could affect intelligence-sharing. He also criticises the right wing for authoritarian tendencies, citing Tory leader Kemi Badenoch's stance that Conservative MPs must support leaving the Convention. Finally, Nick calls on journalists to ask harder questions about the impact he Tories' latest idiocy would have on human rights and the rule of law.

THE LOWDOWN INTERVIEWS POLLSTER PETER KELLNER ON THE RETURN OF TWO-PARTY POLiTICS

From Monday, October 19th, you can watch or listen to Nick's interview with leading pollster Peter Kellner, who says we may be witnessing the return of traditional two party Labour-Tory politics in the UK. Will support for the Greens and Reform UK continue to slide, leading to the return of the long-running Tory-Labour Punch and Judy show?

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In the latest episode of The Lowdown, Nick Cohen talks to David Frum, the former George W. Bush speechwriter turned leading “Never Trump” conservative and Atlantic writer, for a wide-ranging discussion on Trump, the deteriorating UK-U.S. relationship, America’s place in the world, and the crisis facing the democratic right.

David Frum begins by challenging easy assumptions about the withdrawal of U.S. heavy bombers from RAF Fairford. Was it another sign of Donald Trump administration’s hostility to Europe and Britain under Labour? Or did it reflect something equally alarming: that drones have changed warfare so dramatically that American bases and aircraft are now far more vulnerable than planners admit? Drawing on the lessons of Ukraine and Iran, Frum argues that the US military may be struggling to adapt to a new age of cheap, effective drone warfare.

The conversation then turns to the future of the US-UK alliance. David Frum warns that Britain can no longer assume America will return to normal once Trump leaves office. After two Trump victories, and with figures such as JD Vance waiting in the wings, European governments must prepare for the possibility that the old Atlantic alliance is gone for good. His advice to Britain is stark: stop living on nostalgia and start building serious European security arrangements.

Cohen and Frum also discuss the coming American midterms, the limits of polling, and why even a Republican defeat may not break Trumpism’s hold over the right. Frum reflects on why conservatism has moved away from markets, fiscal discipline and internationalism towards nationalism, grievance and protectionism. Economic shocks, mass migration, ageing electorates and pension politics, he argues, have all helped destabilise the old Reagan-Thatcher settlement.

The interview ranges from Trump’s war with Iran to Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, where authoritarianism works less by openly persecuting the innocent than by protecting the guilty. Frum sees echoes of that model in Trump’s America, but also signs that impunity may be starting to crack.

It is a sobering but gripping conversation with one of America’s sharpest conservative critics of Trumpism — and a warning that Britain and Europe must stop waiting for the past to return.

David Frum @davidfrum Writer, http://TheAtlantic.com; Host, The David Frum Show. Contact via https://davidfrum.com/page/contact or Producer@TheDavidFrumShow.com

Nick Cohen's @NickCohen4 latest Substack column Writing from London on politics and culture from the UK and beyond. Read Nick's latest column, Can Europe resist Trump's gangsterism? Does it have the willpower to try?

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