Sultan of Swing: The Life of David Butler

by Michael Crick

Sir David Butler pioneered the science of elections, transforming the way we analyse election results. In 1945, aged only twenty, Butler was the first to turn British constituency results into percentages, and thereby founded the science of psephology. Appearing as an expert on Britain's first TV election night in 1950, he promoted the idea of 'swing' to explain gains and losses to the public. Later, he invented the BBC's popular Swingometer, which is still used today. He has publicly analysed every British general election since the Second World War, and done more than anyone to transform TV coverage of elections, with a style that combined authority and showmanship with his phenomenal memory for facts and figures. First summoned by Churchill for polling advice when he was only twenty-five, David Butler got to know most of Britain's senior post-war politicians and has acted as a highly influential voice behind the scenes. He wrote dozens of books and taught scores of leading figures in politics and the media around the world, building a huge international reputation which regularly took him to America, Australia and India. Award-winning TV correspondent Michael Crick has known David Butler for forty years. In Sultan of Swing , based on interviews with Butler himself, his friends, family and colleagues, and with access to many previously unseen papers, Crick chronicles the long and energetic life of the greatest analyst of British elections – a story that weaves its way through post-war history with surprises, colour and humour.

Genres: Biography, Politics

473 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 25, 2018

About the author

Michael Crick is an English journalist, author and broadcaster.

Born in Northampton, he was educated at Manchester Grammar School and New College, Oxford, where he got a first class degree in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE). At Oxford he was editor of one of the student newspapers, Cherwell, founded the Oxford Handbook and the Oxbridge Careers Handbook, and was president of the Oxford Union.

He specialises in politics, and appeared as a regular reporter on BBC Two's Newsnight. In March 2007, he was appointed the programme's political editor.

In 2003, under heavy pressure from the preparation of the Hutton Report, it refused to show Crick's report for Newsnight into 'Betsygate', the alleged misuse of public funds by the private office of former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith and supposed payments to his wife Betsy for work she did not do. Crick referred the case to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Sir Philip Mawer and the Duncan Smiths were cleared of any impropriety.

In the 2005 general election, it was observed that the five most terrifying words in the political lexicon were "Michael Crick is in reception".

He has also reported for Channel 4 News and Panorama, and has appeared on Have I Got News For You. He is known as the unofficial biographer and nemesis of Jeffrey Archer. Margaret Crick, his estranged wife, published a biography of Archer's wife Mary in 2005.

A keen supporter of Manchester United, he has written several books on the team as well as his literary political works. In 1998-99 he was the organiser of the Shareholders United Against Murdoch campaign which successfully opposed BSkyB's proposed takeover of United. He later served as Vice-Chairman of Shareholders United.

He lives with his partner Lucy Hetherington and they have a daughter called Isabel. He also has an older daughter from his previous marriage. On 24 February 2008, the News of the World newspaper reported that he had a six month affair with Jeanette Eccles a former BBC researcher. The paper ridiculed Crick for presenting himself as moral crusader, while his own behaviour had been unethical. He was also criticised for trying to prevent the publication of the story on the grounds of privacy, while he making a living from exposing the wrong doings of others.

Crick, a known Labour supporter, is known for his investigations of Conservative politicians and followed then Tory leader, Michael Howard around during the 2005 election campaign as part of his research for his biography of Howard, published the same year. Since then, Crick has investigated Conservative Party Chairman, Caroline Spelman for abuse of expenses.

Reviews

[John Kaye · Rating 5 out of 5]

An utterly delightful book. But perhaps only if you're a psephology anorak like me. David Butler has been a hero of mine since my mid-teens, and somewhere I have a letter from him suggesting that he sends the researcher who is writing on the Preston constituencies for the 1966 Election book, round to see me, on the back of a very carefully constucted small opinion poll (via a careful reading of Claus Moser) I had constructed and run. The researcher, when he turned up on our doorstep, was rather surprised to find a seventeen-year-old boy!

Apart from novelists, perhaps no one else has authored as many books on my shelf, including the one on Indian elections he constructed with Prannoy Roy, which Prannoy Roy gave me himself!

The quantity and quality of networking that David Butler achieved is awe-inspiring, and the early chapter on his first visits to the US are jaw-dropping, perhaps worth reading this chapter alone for any aspiring politics student or aspiring politician.

[D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sitting alongside Crick's better-known biographies of heavyweights like Alex Ferguson, Jeffrey Archer, and Michael Howard is Sultan of Swing, Crick's recent biography of election expert David Butler. The inventor of the swingometer, Butler was a fixture on election night broadcasts for years, the Statto of political facts with an enthusiasm for the minutiae of electioneering. He was Sir John Curtice before Sir John Curtice.

Crick's biography motors along, with Butler ascending rapidly from student and shaping TV election footage, and from developing election analysis in the UK, Australia, and India, to a successful career at Nuffield College, Oxford. The tale is all the better for avoiding psephological detail, with the rapid advances in analysis being clear. The 1950's world of swingometers and basic percentages is now well behind us, with complex algorithms driving electioneering.

Butler's strength was as an ideas man and populariser. He was no analytical expert, leaving others to slog through data to theorise political change. He was a prolific author, sticking to deadlines (when co-authors did not let him down), almost single-handedly developing a market for intelligent data-driven election analysis. Some other academics felt Butler's work was too superficial and lacked solid theoretical foundations, although Butler rose to a level of fame and influence achieved by few other academics.

Sultan of Swing sits slightly uncomfortably alongside Crick's work on heavyweight figures such as Jeffrey Archer, Alex Fergusson, and Michael Howard, but more for the subject matter than the quality of the writing. The book is clearly a labour of love for Crick, providing a tribute to a man he knows and respects. It is all the better for that, but perhaps only of immediate interest to election aficionados.

[Ipswichblade · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting biography of the man who introduced the swingometer