David Butler (1924-2022) & E P Thompson on Ephology
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.
Psephology was and is not without its critics however
Below is a footnote that E P Thompson made to his A Psessay in Ephology about the 1959 General Election. It appeared in the last issue of the New Reasoner, No.9, Autumn 1959. It merged with Universities and Left Review to become the New Left Review in 1960.
The footnote, though over 60 years old, does seem to capture quite well the relation between the media, leaders debate and opinion polls currently:
A psephologist is a man employed by the mass media to research into what people think the mass media has told them to think. An ephologist is a man employed by the ‘Observer’ or BBC to interpret the results of psephology and who makes an ephing good thing out of it
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