Location
Magdalen College
Date
29 October 2026
Time
5pm
Since 1945, Britain has enjoyed a system of alternating single-party majoritarian government dominated by the Conservative and Labour parties. However, at the 2024 election, those two parties together won fewer than three in five of all votes cast, the lowest proportion since 1922, while candidates standing for parties other than Conservative and Labour secured more than one in six of the Commons seats at stake, the highest figure since 1923.
Join us at Magdalen Auditorium on Thursday 29 October as Professor Sir John Curtice (1973) – Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University and Senior Research Fellow at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen) – discusses how, since then, British politics has fragmented yet further, with Reform leading in the polls for over a year, the Greens reaching record levels of popularity, and both the Conservatives and Labour struggling at little more than 20% in the opinion polls.
Labour have responded to this challenge by changing its leader and the country’s Prime Minister. The Conservatives are attempting to restore their reputation for competent government, following the damage it suffered in the last parliament. But how successful are these responses likely to be? Do the two parties’ electoral difficulties simply lie in failures of leadership and governance? Or have there been fundamental changes in the structure of voting behaviour in Britain that will make it difficult for them to regain the dominance they once enjoyed?
Timings: 5pm-6.45pm
Location: Grove Auditorium, Magdalen College (Longwall St, Oxford, OX1 3SX)
There is no charge for this event. Attendees are welcome to bring guests.
A livestream link will be sent out in advance of the event for those wishing to watch.
Email the Alumni Office to book your space.
Sir John is one of the UK’s foremost experts on this subject. He has written extensively on voting behaviour in British elections and referendums, as well as on political and social attitudes more generally, having co-directed the British Election Study from 1983 to 1997 and co-edited NatCen’s annual British Social Attitudes reports since 1994.
He is a familiar voice in British and international media coverage of UK politics, including as a member of the BBC’s election night team, and served as President of the British Polling Council between 2008 and 2024. He is a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Academy of the Social Sciences and the Political Studies Association, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society and the Market Research Society.