Profile | David Butler

David Butler, an Emeritus Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, has been studying the unfolding drama of UK elections since the 1940s. In this programme, Alexander MacLeod talks to the man himself and his colleagues to uncover what drives this remarkable historian of elections to analyse and explain the workings of the ballot box.

David Butler was the co-creator of the swingometer and first used it on screen in 1959, before it became Robert McKenzie's trademark in 1964. Butler continued to be a part of the BBC's election night coverage until 1979, using his expertise as a psephologist (someone who analyses election statistics) to interpret the results from the polling stations.