Events

Can Labour win the next election?

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01 December 2008

1:00pm - 2:30pm
ippr, 30-32 Southampton Street, London WC2E 7RA

Professor John Curtice, University of Strathclyde with Steve Richards, Chief political commentator, The Independent.

After a decade of dominating the political landscape, Labour’s electoral fortunes have hit a turbulent patch. Following a bounce on coming to power in June 2007, Gordon Brown saw his ratings plunge in the wake of speculation about an early election in the autumn. More recently, Labour has hoped that Brown’s handling of the financial crisis will work to the party’s advantage, although this is as yet unclear in the polls. Meanwhile, the Conservatives under David Cameron have established a clear lead. But how firm is this, and how far ahead do the Tories need to be to gain a clear majority at the next election, now widely expected to be in 2010? What are the prospects for a hung Parliament, giving the Liberal Democrats a potentially decisive role? Ippr is delighted that to examine these questions, in the aftermath of the Glenrothes bye-election, we were joined by Professor John Curtice of Strathclyde University, and Steve Richards of The Independent (invited).

Speakers

John Curtice is Professor of Government at Strathclyde University, and one of the UK’s leading experts on electoral behaviour and social attitudes. His books include The Rise of New Labour (2001). He has been co-editor of the annual British Social Attitudes reports since 1994 and co-director of the Scottish Social Attitudes surveys since its inauguration in 1999. He is also Deputy Director of the Centre for Research into Elections and Social Trends (CREST), a collaborative research centre between the National Centre for Social Research, Strathclyde University and Oxford University. He has also co-directed the British General Election Study, the principal instrument for the survey based study of electoral behaviour in Britain. He is on the advisory board of a number of different national panel surveys in Europe, and is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties. He is a frequent broadcaster and contributor to newspapers, and has worked on the production side of BBC general and local election night programmes since 1979.

Established as one of the most influential political commentators in the country, Steve Richards became The Independent’s chief political commentator in 2000 having been political editor of the New Statesman. He presents GMTV's flagship current affairs show The Sunday Programme and Radio 4’s Week in Westminster.