Data Behind the Headlines is a public programme of talks presented by the Social Sciences Research Methods Programme (SSRMP) at Cambridge University. We will explore how the application of research methods and data analysis impacts on the way we understand and address the most pressing and current social issues.
ONLINE LECTURE | Fri 29 April 2022, 1-2pm
Bricks out of Straw? Interpreting Local Election Results in Britain
Professor Sir John Curtice
In theory local elections are about local government. But in practice they are widely reported by the media as though they were a large national opinion poll. How valid is this approach - and what difficulties beset its implementation?
Professor Sir John Curtice is Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland, and Senior Research Fellow, National Centre for Social Research and the ESRC’s ‘The UK in a Changing Europe’ initiative. He has written extensively about voting behaviour in elections and referendums in the UK, as well as on British political and social attitudes more generally. A regular media commentator on British and Scottish politics, he has been a member of the BBC’s local and general election results night team since 1979.
Watch the lecture recording, below:
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