‘Meet the man who invented the Swingometer’ : a profile of Professor Sir David Butler

A profile of David Butler has been published in The Daily Telegraph (6 April) entitled ‘Meet the man who invented the Swingometer’.

The article begins, “The 2015 general election will mark many milestones. But there is one in particular that may go unnoticed: it will be the 60th anniversary of the swingometer, that strange device which sums up the late-night drama and bleary-eyed lunacy of a British general election.”

It goes on to say, “But it started life as a simple cardboard arrow on a piece of card. And at its birth was Professor Sir David Butler, the 'sultan of swing', as he came to be nicknamed.

There is probably no other person in the country with such an encyclopaedic and first-hand knowledge of post-War general elections. He has covered every single one, not just as an academic analysing the results, but also as television pundit cutting through the fog of numbers.”

The full article can be read here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11511608/Meet-the-man-who-invented-the-Swingometer.html