Charles Clarke and Toby S. James - British Labour Leaders

TIM BALE graduated from Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge, completed a Masters at Northwestern University and earned his PhD from Sheffield. He specialises in political parties and elections in the UK and Europe. Tims media work includes writing for the Financial Times, The Guardian, the Telegraph and The Observer. He has also appeared on various radio and television programmes to talk about politics. In 2011, he received the Political Studies Associations W. J. M. Mackenzie Book Prize for The Conservative Party from Thatcher to Cameron. He has since published The Conservatives Since 1945: The Drivers of Party Change, the third edition of European Politics: A Comparative Introduction, and Five-Year Mission: The Labour Party Under Ed Miliband.

TONY BLAIR was Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from May 1997 to June 2007. He was also the leader of Britains Labour Party from 1994 to 2007 and the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield, England, from 1983 to 2007.

BRIAN BRIVATI has published extensive work on contemporary British politics, with an emphasis on the political history of the British Labour Party, and currently works in international development and capacity building. He is academic director of the PGI Cyber Academy. His biography of Hugh Gaitskell received ten book-of-the-year selections. He has also written a biography of Lord Goodman and edited The Uncollected Michael Foot: Essays, Old and New, 19532003, Alan Bullocks single-volume edition of Ernest Bevin, Guiding Light: The Collected Speeches of John Smith, The Labour Party: A Centenary History, Michaels Foots single-volume edition of Aneurin Bevan, 18971960, and New Labour in Power: Precedents and Prospects.

JIM BULLER is a senior lecturer in politics at the University of York. He has a PhD from the University of Sheffield and has previously worked in the department of political science and international studies at the University of Birmingham. He has written widely on the subject of British politics and public policy, including recent articles in the New Political Economy, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, West European Politics, Contemporary European Politics and British Politics. He has recently co-edited a special issue of Parliamentary Affairs on Assessing Political Leadership in Context British Party Leadership During Austerity. He is also chair of the PSA Anti-Politics and Depoliticisation Specialist Group.

CHARLES CLARKE was Member of Parliament for Norwich South from 1997 to 2010. He served as Education Minister from 1998 and then in the Home Office from 1999 to 2001, before joining the Cabinet as Minister without Portfolio and Labour Party chair. From 2002 to 2004, he was Secretary of State for Education and Skills, and then Home Secretary until 2006. Charles was previously chief of staff to Leader of the Opposition Neil Kinnock. He now holds visiting professorships at the University of East Anglia, Lancaster University and Kings College London, and works with educational organisations internationally. He edited The Too Difficult Box and co-edited British Conservative Leaders.

THOMAS HENNESSEY is a professor of modern British and Irish history at Canterbury Christ Church University. After completing his doctorate, Hennessey was: a junior research fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queens; a research officer at the Centre for the Study of Conflict, University of Ulster; a research assistant at the think tank Democratic Dialogue; and a research fellow at the School of Politics, Queens. He was also a member of the Ulster Unionist Partys talks team during the negotiation of the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday Agreement) in 1998. Hennessey joined the history team at Canterbury Christ Church that same year. He is the author of Optimist in a Raincoat: Harold Wilson, 196470, among many other publications.

DAVID HOWELL is a professor emeritus of politics at the University of York. He has written extensively on the British labour movement. His publications include MacDonalds Party: Labour Identities and Crisis 192231, and he is an editor of the Dictionary of Labour Biography. His latest book is Mosley and British Politics 191832, Oswalds Odyssey.

TOBY S. JAMES is senior lecturer in British and comparative politics at the University of East Anglia. He has a PhD from the University of York and has previously worked at Swansea University and the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. He is the co-convenor of the PSAs Political Leadership Group and has published on statecraft theory and political leadership in journals such as the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Electoral Studies and Government and Opposition, including co-editing a special issue of Parliamentary Affairs on Assessing Political Leadership in Context British Party Leadership During Austerity. He is the author of Elite Statecraft and Election Administration and co-edited British Conservative Leaders.

PETER KELLNER has been president of the pioneering online survey research company YouGov since April 2007, having served as chairman from 2001 until 2007. During the past four decades, he has written for a variety of newspapers, including The Times, the Sunday Times, The Independent, The Observer