‘Be thankful you don’t have our poison’: US pollster Frank Luntz’s warning to UK

Luntz spent years sampling opinion for Republicans before a stroke changed his outlook: I'm not afraid any more, so you will hear me criticise people I never would have two years ago'

When he suffered a stroke, Frank Luntz blamed it on the anger and tension coursing through him after decades of inhaling America's toxic political culture. The country's best-known pollster found himself hospitalised for nearly a week with dangerously high blood pressure.

Two years later, Luntz regards the experience as a turning point. That completely changed my outlook," he says. The loudness of my voice has changed. The speed in which I speak is changed. I'm slower and I'm quieter and I think about what I say. It's not that I'm trying to be careful, it's that I really analyse stuff that comes out."