“Apart from the DUP, the Tories have no friends in the House of Commons.” Photo: Geoff Pugh
The past year has had to be one of Professor Sir John Curtis's personal milestones. He turned 70 in December. His wife Lisa reached the same age eight months ago. For this, they and their daughter, along with her husband and two young children, celebrated by renting several rooms in a castle in Stirlingshire. However, when Kurtis's turn came, he simply decided to ignore it completely.
“Yeah,” he says, waving his hand impatiently, “work has been too busy. But I'm 70 years old and still working. So thank God that the government passed the age discrimination law…»
Officially, Sir John is Professor of Political Science at the University of Strathclyde, President of the British Electoral Council and Senior Research Fellow at the National Center for Social Research and Britain in a Changing Europe.
Unofficially, he is simply the country's chief political polling guru; A pundit of such unerring precision and phlegmatic delivery that his contribution to BBC election nights — interpreting exit polls, explaining voting trends, sitting high as the arbiter of democracy — has earned him a cult following. «Is Sir John Curtis on TV?» asks the Twitter account/X with 12,000 followers. It’s always like this.
“I don’t pay attention to it and don’t follow parody accounts. But on the street people come up to me, and usually they are very nice, asking for a selfie. I guess people who think I'm full of shit don't care.»
«Tory is having an existential crisis»
Sir John has studied politics for more than 45 years, but the last ten years have been his wildest. «Ever since the SNP won an overall majority in 2011 and Cameron decided to hold an independence referendum, British politics has faced some pretty serious challenges,» he says.
“First there was the Scottish question, then the 2015 election, which paved the way for the EU referendum; Theresa May and Parliament are stuck on Brexit while the Conservatives and Labor appear to be in deep, deep trouble; then Boris comes with the majority, then there is some lull, but oh — a pandemic. Then straight to the party gates and Tory leadership elections; then Elizabeth II dies, Liz Truss arrives and it's a complete disaster… And now we have a situation where the opposition party, although everyone thought it faced this insurmountable obstacle, is now favorite to win the general election.» /p> 
“Sunak loves spreadsheets, he’s a detail guy” Photo: Getty
Considering it's an election year, he's about to get even busier. He arrives at a hotel near Whitehall and looks like a man in a hurry: tweed flat cap, gray suit, practical raincoat, practical hybrids of black trainers and dress shoes.
Affable and eccentric, with wild tufts of white cotton candy. hair, he looks like Doc Brown from Back to the Future or a phenomenally smart Roman senator.
“So it’s one of those personality traits, isn’t it?” He says. — Why do you want to talk to me? Well, I say, the elections are coming, and you are Professor Sir John Curtis. Sigh. «I understand. Okay.»
Sir John will be in London for a few days of meetings, interviews and events, a journey he makes from his home in Glasgow so often that he managed to get exactly six hours of sleep in Caledonian «But my ideal exciting day is one where I get up in the morning at home, sit in front of my laptop at 9am, don't have journalists bothering me, and at the end of the day I have something to show for it.»
I suspect he secretly enjoys being so in demand — although no one thinks the next election is on a knife's edge. Sir John certainly does not, as last week's by-election results confirmed. Briefly speaking on the phone, on Friday afternoon, after I had been awake for over 30 hours, everything went more or less as expected.
«I didn't expect the Conservatives to do so poorly in Wellingborough, but of course the main expectation was that reform was doing better and the Conservatives were failing.» It is clear that reform is now a major thorn in the Tories' side.
“Richard Tice is determined to stand everywhere, they believe the Tories failed to get Brexit done, failed to get work done on immigration and failed to get tax done, so Basically, conservatives are under attack from the right by people who think they haven't succeeded. defended the true faith. And this is always difficult,” says Sir John.
“The problem they face is that we are already seeing a serious split in the Leave coalition that brought the Conservatives to power in 2019. Almost everyone who votes for reform is a Brexiteer, so there is a risk of a split in this coalition. crucial. Leaving the coalition is even worse.”
Is reform now almost a bigger issue for Sunak than the Labor Party? “Actually no, because if you lose the vote to Labor they can turn it into seats and the reformists can't. But in terms of vote flow, yes. In essence, the by-election reflects the essence of opinion polls: roughly speaking, for every person who switches from Conservative to Labour, another one switches to Reform.”
As it stands, Labour's lead is strong and stable at 20 points. “Other than UK reform showing a bit of life, nothing remarkable has happened in 16 months. The Conservatives recovered a bit, but then made the fatal mistake of not backing the Privileges Committee report on Boris Johnson, and the progress they had made disappeared,” says Sir John.
“It increasingly looks like the Conservative Party does not understand the predicament it is in, the source of its difficulties or, indeed, has not found an effective solution. Time is running out, and history is also against it.” This is a party “facing an existential crisis,” he adds, and “it is possible that by choosing to focus on immigration, the Tories simply cast votes for reform.” All they did was a) advertise their failure and b) advertise their division.»
In some ways, he thinks, Labor has it easy. “Essentially the Conservative Party said to itself: 'We've got big problems, we've increased the role of the state, we've increased taxes massively and we haven't made progress on immigration — that's why we're in trouble.' polls.» This is almost certainly counterintuitive. The reason they are losing in the polls is simple. First, the state of the economy; secondly, the state of health care; and the third, Boris Johnson. So when it comes to the economy, Labor can just put the tail on the donkey and say: «The Tories did it!»
But Sir Keir Starmer shouldn't jump for joy just yet. “Keir Starmer has not won the hearts and minds of the country. He convinced people [Labour] to be moderate enough that they could see him as Prime Minister — that he wouldn't upset the apple cart. But there is no enthusiasm, and that is potentially a problem.»
«Starmer's skill set is that he is a brilliant prosecution lawyer.» Author: AFP
Not least because the problems that Tory has had will continue and require money. “As one economist recently said to me: “What is the point of a social democratic government if there is no money to spend?” It becomes very difficult to satisfy your voters. «You can see that the Tories are in trouble now, but you can also see that after 18 months of a Labor government, assuming the Tories don't engage in a fratricidal war, the Labor Party could also find itself in quite a difficult position.»
So it's a one-term government? Sir John inhales sharply, then nods firmly. “Potentially yes. If many Tories manage to avoid blowing up…” So, despite appearances, this is actually a more interesting election than it seems? “Yes, that’s true.”
“Intellectuals, as a rule, are not very good at politics.”
An only child, Sir John was born and raised in St Austell, Cornwall. His father was a carpenter; his mother is a part-time market researcher. “Skilled lower middle class working class. My grandfather refused to pay my mother to go to school, and she was angry with him for a long time. So she really wanted to contribute to my education.”
Both grandfathers were miners, but my mother’s side was also politically active. Sir John's mother became a Liberal councilor, and her brother was a Labor supporter.
“I certainly remember the occasional political argument at the kitchen table.” As a bookish child, Sir John found it amazing how people living under the same roof could have completely different views of the world. “Although my first political memory is the death of Hugh Gaitskell [in 1963, when he was 10 years old] and the subsequent election of the Labor Party leadership. I just thought it was interesting — don’t ask why.”
Sir John likes to identify «pivots» in narrative trends and cites two of his early years. “One of them was when I started taking my A-level exams and we were told it wasn't about learning, it was about arguing and debating. I said, «Oh, this is much more interesting.» One of my traits is that I am willing to challenge conventional wisdom that started at 16 years old.
He studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE) at Magdalen College, Oxford, and then moved to Nuffield College as a postgraduate student. Sir Tony Blair was a contemporary, «but he wasn't involved in politics.» Want to pretend to be Mick Jagger more? «Yes, indeed. John Hutton and Chris Huhne were here too, although Huhne was definitely a Labor Party member in those days.»
Sir John hung out at Oxford for a few years, teaching, and eventually became William Hague's tutor, “So this is my main achievement.” Lord Hague, of course, was an MP at 27 and a minister at 31.
“Haaga was just a classic smart layman born for personal protective equipment. He spent most of his time in the union. Didn't do a lot of work but obviously just pulled myself together six weeks before the final and got first place. He was one of those people who knew how to expose, quickly write an essay and talk… You probably have plenty of them in your office, don't you? Well, I think one of them became prime minister. Curtis chuckles. «Really.»
Boris Johnson, by the way, is one of three “titans of post-war politics” that Sir John singles out from all the other politicians he has witnessed. The others are Sir Tony and Margaret Thatcher. He himself never thought about becoming a politician: “I’m too abusive, too individualistic.”
Besides, “I am to some extent a buffoon, a certified fool; under the guise of impartiality or academic stupidity, you are given the right to say what others will not say. I am of the opinion that intellectuals are generally not very good at politics. You need to be able to communicate clearly, you need to be able to communicate, you need to be able to construct a narrative and communicate a vision; but you also don't have to doubt yourself — and that's the most important feature of academic life.”
It's a strange, rare combination of skills in a person. The best he saw was Sir Tony Blair, «who could just grab the attention of the British public and build a narrative, and, apart from eventually being ruined, he was quite good at governing.»
Johnson, Thatcher and Blair, according to Curtis, are the “titans of post-war politics”. Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images | Jamie Hodgson/Getty Images | Medhi Feduah/AFP/Getty Images
“It is on this last point that he is ahead of Boris, the consummate campaigner who ended up being a lousy figure in government. Wrong skill set. He was prime minister for the good times, not the pandemic. And Thatcher was a good conversationalist, but again she fell out of line and lost touch. However, until the end of her premiership, she was probably the most skilled. These are three titans.»
At Oxford, Sir John's mentor was the political scientist David Butler, a psychologist who was a commentator on the BBC's evening election coverage from 1950 to 1979 and was the co-inventor of the swingometer. Under Butler's leadership, Sir John came to understand how important quantitative analysis could be, especially in the rapidly developing computer age. When most scientists were still using slide rules, he acquired computer skills; He soon replaced Butler as the BBC's election night interpreter.
He has now worked on every general election since 1979, with the following being his 11th and his 18th. . So I wonder what his assessment of the current generation of leaders is.
“One of the problems we face at the moment is that I don't think either Sunak or Starmer or Davey or, frankly, Yusuf really have the necessary skill set to be a political leader. Starmer and Sunak have great professional competence, but Sunak's skill set is that he loves spreadsheets and has an eye for detail like Gordon Brown,» says Sir John.
«Starmer's skill set is that that he is a brilliant prosecution lawyer. These are not useless skills in government, but they do not allow you to communicate with the general public.»
And this is the best we have. Is this the weakest group of leaders he has ever seen in a general election? He thinks for a moment. «Yes, perhaps.»
“The 1975 EU referendum did not solve the problem, and it is clear that the 2016 referendum did not either”
Sir John won't tell me who will win his own vote, but he admits he hasn't always voted the same way. There are no MPs whom he considers friends, and he has clear rules: never take money from a political party or organization close to parties; and he won't say anything to anyone in private that he wouldn't want to say in public.
It helps that he doesn't live in Westminster or even England. This means you won't find him at the Carlton Club in the evening. When he does stay in the capital, it is often with his daughter, a senior civil servant, and her family in south London. “I spend most of my time reading computer tables rather than running around SW1.”
His wife Lisa decided in recent years to become a full-time Anglican priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church. Sir John also attends church regularly. «One of the reasons I'm still working is, let's put it this way, because she's not waiting for me at home to take her to Amsterdam every weekend.» They relax while caring for their area.
“My great salvation. Most weekends I try to eat this—vegetables in the winter, fruits in the summer. That's two to three hours of exercise to help with weight loss, which means I have a little more to worry about. But it was a lousy winter. Nature is not as predictable as the voting public.
He concluded that he needed some sleep, but «needed to be able to sleep through the night» every few months. His BBC election coverage tends to be all about coffee. He will return this year, although with David Dimbleby gone and Huw Edwards unwell, no one knows who will sit next to him. — And me too.
He points to 1992 as his greatest failure, when opinion polls pointed to a hung parliament or a narrow Labor majority. In the end, it was the Tories' fourth victory in a row. “The polls let us down a lot.”
On the other hand, his greatest triumph was undoubtedly 2017, when his remarkable exit poll showed Theresa May was likely to lose her parliamentary majority, then the actual results were almost identical. He was hailed as «the man who won the election» and knighted the following year.
Sir John received a knighthood in 2018 Photo: Jane Barlow/PA Wire
It's not like he let fame go to his head — his wife and daughter paid for it. “They know about my cult status. Or supposed cult status. I think they are both strong enough individuals with their own interests and careers that they take me lightly and treat me with the proper level of disrespect that all daughters and wives should show their fathers and husbands.”
Another unpredictable decade awaits us. He can confidently say that the debate over the EU is “not over yet” and, given the age composition of the Leave vote, the issue will resurface in the long term, “because the 1975 referendum did not solve the problem, and it is clear that this did not happen in 2016.” The same can be said about the situation north of the border.
But there will be a general election soon, which will require dramatic changes to create a surprise. “The Tories need to do more than deny Labour an overall majority, they need to win around 320 seats or they will be swamped. Apart from the DUP they have no friends in the House of Commons. So even if they win fewer seats, Labor will form the government. What you're saying is that the Tories should get back at least equal to Stevens, maybe a little better.»
Both at 70, and after 45 years of dancing at the polls, it might just be may be Sir John's last. He clinks his cappuccino. «Inevitably,» he says, «after the next general election I may well ask myself, 'Well, maybe it's time to call it a day?'
However, as always, this is a matter of trend analysis. . “I'm not sending any signals. I just realize that this is something that you have to constantly evaluate and then re-evaluate.”
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