How this site works
Methodology
A site that promises both sides has to show its workings. This page sets out how every judgement on ukpoliticshub is made — and, just as importantly, what each method cannot tell you.
Independence
ukpoliticshub is not endorsed by, affiliated with, funded by or connected to any political party, campaign or candidate. No party has any editorial input. Where we publish a judgement of our own rather than a sourced fact, it is flagged Our assessment so you can weigh it differently from an official figure.
Polling
The Race for No.10 reports an existing published rolling average of British Polling Council members’ voting-intention polls, rather than computing an average of our own. That is deliberate: you can check our headline number against its source in one click, and we cannot quietly put a thumb on the scale by choosing which polls to include.
Every individual poll behind the average is listed on the front page with its pollster, fieldwork dates and a link to the pollster’s own write-up. Where a pollster did not publish a figure for a party, we print an em dash rather than a zero or an estimate.
What this cannot tell you: vote share is not seats. Under first-past-the-post a party on 12% nationally may hold five seats while a party on 21% holds over a hundred. We do not publish a seat projection, because the available models diverge sharply and get quoted as fact. Movements of a point or two between polls are usually noise, not news.
How we rate news outlets
Each masthead carries a fixed position on a −10 (left) to +10 (right) scale. The rating describes the outlet, not the individual article, and it does not change from story to story. Positions draw on Ofcom’s news-consumption research, the Reuters Institute Digital News Report’s left–right placement of news audiences, and published perception surveys. Where those sources disagree, we take the midpoint.
We rate the outlet rather than the article on purpose. The news table is filled from live RSS feeds with no human in the loop, so per-article scoring would mean having a model judge the slant of every headline — precisely the point at which a site promising neutrality becomes the story.
What this cannot tell you: a right-leaning paper runs stories that damage the right, and a left-leaning one does the reverse. A rating is a prior, not a verdict on the piece in front of you. Broadcasters regulated for due impartiality sit near the centre by obligation, which is not the same as being free of editorial judgement. Reasonable people place several of these mastheads a point or two from where we have.
Two outlets below are rated but do not appear in the news table: The Times and The Spectator publish no open RSS feed. We list their ratings for reference rather than quietly dropping them, so you can see the full picture of who we do and do not carry.
Placing parties on the spectrum
Party positions use the same −10 to +10 axis, as a composite of economic and social policy. These are editorial judgements informed by published academic classification, each party’s own stated policy, and where commentators across the spectrum place them. They are not measurements, and we would not defend any single figure to the point.
Where a party disputes how it is characterised, the dispute is printed alongside the characterisation rather than resolved by us. Restore Britain is the clearest current case: political scientists classify it as far-right and ethno-nationalist, and the party rejects that description as a smear campaign. Both statements appear on its page.
What this cannot tell you: a single axis flattens real disagreement. A party can be economically interventionist and socially restrictive at once, and the number will hide that. Read the position note, not just the dot.
- Green-7Left to eco-socialist. Moved sharply left under Zack Polanski, who campaigns explicitly as an "eco-populist" against both Labour and Reform.
- Labour-3Centre-left. In office since 2024 on a broadly fiscally orthodox platform; the Burnham leadership is positioned to its predecessor's left on public ownership and devolution.
- Lib Dems-2Centre to centre-left. Socially liberal and pro-European, with a campaigning focus on health and social care and, since 2025, on opposing Reform UK directly.
- Conservative+5Centre-right to right. Squeezed between a Labour government and a Reform UK party occupying much of its former ground.
- Reform+8Right to populist right. Restrictionist on immigration, opposed to net zero targets, and campaigning against both established parties.
- Restore+9Far right. Political scientists place it well to the right of Reform UK; the party rejects the characterisation. Both positions are set out under Credibility and concerns below.
The Russia assessment
The score currently stands at 45/100. It measures sustained state-level pressure on the United Kingdom — espionage, sabotage, cyber operations and activity around UK infrastructure. It does not measure the likelihood of open war, which remains low.
Six factors are each scored 0–100 on their own evidence and then weighted; the weights sum to 100. Every factor on the front page expands to show the evidence behind its score and links to the underlying reporting. The weights are:
- 20%Ukraine trajectory and Russian force commitment28
- 22%Undersea infrastructure and the shadow fleet58
- 15%Naval and air activity around the United Kingdom40
- 18%Sabotage, arson and espionage on UK soil48
- 15%Cyber operations against critical national infrastructure50
- 10%Official UK posture and rhetoric40
Bands
- 0–19LowNo sustained state-level pressure evident.
- 20–39ModeratePersistent hostile activity, largely routine in scale.
- 40–59ElevatedSustained grey-zone pressure across several domains.
- 60–79HighIntensifying activity with direct risk to UK infrastructure.
- 80–100SeverePressure approaching or crossing into open confrontation.
This is our assessment, and nobody else’s. It is not produced, endorsed or reviewed by the UK government, JTAC, MI5 or any intelligence agency, and it carries no official standing whatsoever. We built it because the official threat-level system covers terrorism, not state pressure, and readers deserve something more structured than a headline. Treat it as a way of organising public evidence — nothing more. The terrorism threat level published beside it is the genuine official figure, and we never adjust that.
Corrections
If a figure here is wrong or out of date, we want to fix it rather than defend it. Every number on this site carries a link to its source precisely so that errors are easy to catch. Sourced data is refreshed on a rolling basis and each section states the date it was last assessed.