REFLECTIONS ON BRITISH ELECTIONS AND THEIR STUDY

This chapter summarizes the history of the Nuffield series of election studies, which describe and analyze each of the 15 British general elections since 1945. It is a tribute to RB McCallum, Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, who initiated the series, but it is also an exploration of the ways in which electioneering has been transformed over the past 50 years. Two contests stand out as milestones: 1959 saw the first television coverage, the first press conferences, the first private polling, and the first nationwide advertising; 1997 was remarkable for the consolidation of all the new techniques of communication and public relations in the Labour Party's remarkably successful campaign.