General secretary of the General Federation of Trade Unions GAWAIN LITTLE calls for support and participation in the national partnership organised to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 1926 general strike
The selling of illusions
KEITH FLETT looks at how statistics and voter preference analysis obscure what the majority of the electorate expects from their government

DAVID BUTLER, who died at 98, was a key figure in how British elections were understood and analysed from the late 1940s on.
He authored books after each general election reviewing the results and was a familiar figure on BBC election night programmes. In that sense he is part of Britain’s post-1945 social history himself.
Michael Crick’s biography reveals that Butler’s original interest was in cricket statistics but on returning from service in the army in 1945 he found few matches being played and switched his attention to politics.
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