School of Politics and International Studies

Lecturer in British Politics

What does your working week at POLIS involve?
Outside of lectures and seminars, the average working week involves meetings with personal tutees and dissertation students, dealing with e-mails and working on publications.

What brought you to POLIS and the University of Leeds?
I knew that POLIS had a strong reputation within British Politics and I thought that my publication record in party politics and political leadership would fit in with the objectives of the Leadership, Parties and Institutions research group.

You are introducing two new modules for the BA Politics degree, what areas of your research will these be covering?
For 2009-2010, I have created two political parties based modules for second year students, with a Conservative Party politics module created for semester one and a Labour Party politics module to run in semester two. Both modules will provide students with an opportunity to understand developments within post war Conservative and Labour party politics.

More specifically, they will explore the existence of ideological divisions within the two main political parties, and the difficulties in terms of party management for respective Conservative and Labour party leaders. This focus on ideological conflict and how it impacts upon party leaders has been the dominant aspect of my research.

Having published The Conservative Party Leadership of John Major in 2006, I will be publishing The Conservative Party Leadership of William Hague towards the end of 2009, both of which examine the complexities of managing post-Thatcherite Conservatism. 

I have moved increasingly into party leadership election studies in the last two years, and having published Choosing the Tory Leader: Conservative Party Leadership Elections from Heath to Cameron last year, I am close to completing the Labour equivalent: Choosing the Labour Leader: Labour Party Leadership Elections from Wilson to Brown.

How did you get into your particular area of research and what do you find the most interesting aspect of British Politics?
How party political leaders establish and maintain --  or, more importantly, fail to maintain -- cohesion and discipline within their parties has always been a source of fascination to me. That fascination was triggered at school by the circumstances that caused the downfall of Margaret Thatcher in November 1990 and the emergence of John Major as Conservative Party Leader and Prime Minister.

I began my PhD on the collapse of the Conservatives in the Major era at Newcastle University the year that the Conservatives lost office in 1997; it is slightly worrying for Labour that there are some similarities between the tail end of the Major era and the current Brown administration – a comparison that I explored in a recent paper in Parliamentary Affairs.

What's your most frequently asked question by students?
Students often discuss the structure of an intended essay and then having done so ask: if I do it like that, will that be enough for a 2:1?

If you could get students to understand one thing, what would it be?
The students that get the most out of seminars are those that prepare the most.

What do you like to do in your spare time?
I live in York with my wife Gayle, who is a lecturer in law, and our two sons - Matthew, aged 4, and Oliver, aged 1. Most of my spare time is devoted to them; we like to visit soft play areas or the National Railway Museum. If anyone needs an expert on the power rangers or the teletubbies, then I am your man!

• View all profiles