This is the 13th presidential campaign I have followed, as a teenager and

as an adult, and the only previous campaign that generated anything like the same passion and enthusiasm was the first of those: John Kennedy’s in 1960. For many people, including myself, the excitement of this campaign is the prospect of an African-American president who could change the direction of his country, and perhaps the world, after [...]

The divided mood among Labour MPs matches that of party members on a number of key issues. On Trident, there is little enthusiasm for replacing the system with an equally powerful successor. Yet only a minority want Britain to leave the nuclear club. The views of MPs have been on public display; those of party members emerge from a detailed survey by YouGov.

View the results of the YouGov [...]

As any sports star will testify, change the rules and you change the way the game is played. Defenders and strikers would apply new tactics were soccer's offside rule to be amended. Bring in a new leg-before-wicket law, and bowlers and batsmen would act differently.

Politics is the same. Change the voting system and you change the way parties fight elections and voters decide whom to support. We can't [...]

Two central truths dominate the result of the general election. The first is that Labour has won its third consecutive clear-cut victory for the first time in its life. For this, Tony Blair deserves much of the credit. The second is that Labour's share of the vote has fallen sharply since 2001. For this, Tony Blair deserves much of the blame.

Many readers will find one of those propositions far [...]

Voters are overwhelmingly opposed to the government's proposals for top-up fees. An exclusive YouGov poll for the New Statesman this month finds that only 30 per cent support the policy, while 56 per cent oppose it - a margin that is virtually unaltered since early December. (Respondents were told: "Tony Blair wants to allow universities to charge students tuition fees of up to £3,000 a year. He says this is [...]

Credit where it's due: for once the Conservatives played like champions before this month's elections. In public, they made the absurd claim that they would gain only 30 council seats. The media rightly mocked the poverty of this ambition, but fell for the widely leaked "private" hopes of 200-300 gains. This became the unofficial yardstick on which Iain Duncan Smith's survival would depend: fewer than 200 and he would be [...]

Few things are more certain to get up Tony Blair's nose than the accusation that he has abandoned Labour's principles. He says it is all nonsense: witness all the money he is pumping into the public services, and the extra help he is giving poor families. However, the results of a new survey by YouGov suggest the Prime Minister should stop complaining. Yes, he is thought to have jettisoned his [...]

Libertarian, republican, anti-capitalist? If that is how you think of Britain's youth, think again. A special survey for the New Statesman finds that they are a cautious generation, wary of radical change - whether it concerns drugs, the monarchy or the global economy.

Earlier this month, YouGov surveyed more than 1,000 people in the 16- to 25-year-old age range. The poll was conducted online, using the same methods that enabled [...]

Let us start with a proposition that should command general, if not universal, consent. British politics is in a less than perfect condition. None of the main parties exudes much self-confidence. All behave as if they have blundered into a strange new land. Labour looks ill at ease and at odds with many of its supporters, despite its second landslide victory. The Conservatives do not know whether they will survive [...]

Did you know about the torrid affair between the elderly plumber and the young and ravishing Lady Avocet? Probably not, unless you are familiar with the latest American edition of The Rise of the Meritocracy. Michael Young's introduction recounts the difficulty he had finding a publisher in dour, 1950s Britain for his mischievous satire. "I hawked it around from one publisher to another - 11 of them - and was [...]