UofG Centre for Public Policy

1 April 2026: The Centre for Public Policy's Mark McGeoghegan and Professor Kezia Dugdale write that the link between politics and policy is broken in most coverage and analysis of British and Scottish politics. During the Spring elections in the UK, the Centre will work to bridge that gap. Read this blog for more on what the impact is of this 'decoupling' of analysis, and what to expect from the Centre in the coming weeks. 

Blog by Mark McGeoghegan and Professor Kezia Dugdale

Politics and policymaking are two sides of the same coin. An ideal political party or politician is inspired by their politics to form and implement particular policies, and shape their political strategy and communications to promote those policies.

As analysts, our work should mirror that by taking the political strategies, policies, and underlying political beliefs and values of parties and politicians and dissect how they interact with each other and, ultimately, what that means for our broader politics, the economy, and society.

But this link between politics and policy is now broken in most coverage and analysis of British, and Scottish, politics. Take analysis of Rachel Reeves’ Budget. We can sort it into two camps: that focused on politics, and that focused on policy. The latter, coming from academic bodies, think tanks, and comparatively niche publications like the Financial Times and the Substacks of policy experts, identified a litany of issues one could take with the Budget. For instance, Ms Reeves delayed the impact of major tax rises while immediately implementing policies voters like, such as freezing rail fares and reducing environmental levies on energy bills, storing up the pain for later.

The Chancellor’s Budget was described as a smorgasbord of welfare spending increases and tax increases. It was just as much a smorgasbord of fiscal and political risk. But these questions were not front-and-centre when Ms Reeves faced the press. Rather, her interviewers focused on esoteric political minutiae, like whether her publicising one aspect of the OBR’s projections but not another qualified as “lying” to voters.

Analysis of policy and analysis of politics have become decoupled, when they should be intertwined. That decoupling too often leads to a form of Kremlinology masquerading as political analysis, setting aside the policies that will actually shape people’s lives in favour of gossip.

With crucial Holyrood elections coming up, the University of Glasgow’s Centre for Public Policy seeks to play its part in correcting that trend, coupling policy and political analysis to inform the broader Scottish public discourse. Scotland faces a set of devilish policy challenges, from improving health outcomes to growing our economy, all underpinned by the realities of an ageing population, a narrow tax base, and an unstable geopolitical environment.

To help us all navigate these challenges we’ll shortly be publishing a series of Policy Insights, themed around the substantive devolved issues of the campaign. Health, Education and Justice for example. The future of cultural policy, housing and migration policy. We’ll also attempt to do the same for themes which don’t sit neatly in one government department like rising to the challenge of meeting Net Zero targets and eradicating child poverty. The whole public services reform agenda sits here alongside discussions about the role of place and constitutional futures.

Alongside these more substantive Policy Insights, we’ll also have a series of more rapid reaction blogs related to events of the campaign. Short, sharp analysis of policies announced by political parties and events from the campaign itself.

Our popular UofG Spotlight podcast will be back with a special weekly election series starting out with a “State of the Race” episode, before looking at how rising energy prices are both playing out in the campaign and affecting how politicians talk about the climate crisis.

Finally, we are also thrilled to be offering a series of webinars in partnership with Ipsos, the Campaign for Social Science and the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The first of these will take a comparative look at what’s happening in both Scottish and Welsh politics on the issue of cost of living with the Campaign for Social Science. After that we’ll be asking whether the political parties manifestos stack up financially with the IFS, before finally turning to the latest polling analysis and insights on what’s driving voter behaviour with Ipsos. You can sign up for each and all of these events now.

Visit our dedicated Elections 2026 webpage to access all of our election-focused activity, with lots more to come.

Authors

Mark McGeoghegan is a Research Associate at the Centre for Public Policy. He is a Associate Advisory Director at Ipsos, postgraduate researcher in politics and international relations at the University of Glasgow, and a columnist for The Herald.

Professor Kezia Dugdale is Associate Director of the Centre for Public Policy. Kez leads the Centre’s community and external engagement, providing an important bridge between the University, policy makers and the communities they serve.

 

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^{Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash}

First published: 1 April 2026