The Strathclyde University professor "everyone trusts on election night"

Sir John Curtice, Professor of Politics at the University of Strathclyde, is one of the most recognisable faces of election night. A leading voice in social attitudes and electoral behaviour, he has worked with the university in Glasgow since 1989, offering analysis during the development of devolution, the independence referendum and a succession of landmark moments in politics. He has been involved in the BBC’s coverage of the last ten general elections.

He will spend election day on Thursday working with his team to hone the findings of a national exit poll that will be announced at 10pm as polls close and count centres spring into action. “The lovely thing about the period between 10 o’clock and 11.30 p.m. is that nobody knows!” he told The New York Times. “It’s that moment when we don’t really have a government.”

In the last six general elections, his exit poll has correctly predicting the largest party - in five of the six, the margin of error for that forecast was five parliamentary seats or fewer.

With unruly hair, frankly stated insight and unbridled enthusiasm, Curtice has become an unlikely media star: “I try to speak in human. I am trying to speak in ways that the general public will understand. “Sometimes I kick one party and other times I kick the other,” he says. “And usually I kick both of them.”

Sir John Curtice grew up in St Austell Cornwell. In an interview with The Guardian, he said his interest in electoral behaviour began when his parents, a carpenter and a market researcher, allowed him to stay up and watch the results show for the 1964 election. He studied politics, philosophy and economics at Magdalen College, Oxford.

Curtice's wife, the Rev. Dr. Lisa Joan Curtice, is a social scientist who later retrained as a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church. They live together in the West End of Glasgow and have one daughter.

At the age of 70, the academic will be participating in a relentless churn of radio and television appearances through the day and night on Thursday: “You don’t have time to think about going to sleep — it’s adrenaline, it’s intellectual excitement, it’s an intellectual challenge,” he says.

In 2018, he was given a knighthood in the Queen's New Year honours list. “A letter arrived from the Cabinet Office in November last year, which didn’t seem out of the ordinary – I very occasionally get letters from government departments. My first thought when I realised I was getting a knighthood was: well, I wasn’t expecting this! I had to keep it quiet for a while – even when a friend joked that I’d be next in the running, which I had to pass off as complete nonsense.

“The reaction when the news was announced was positive, a lot of people were extremely kind about it. Even many of those who aren’t particularly enamoured with the honours system were very gracious. It’s very affirming, really. People are basically saying you’re doing a good job.”

His high profile appearances at the heart of election coverage means he is often recognised in Glasgow. “It’s fine,” he says. “The only people who come up to you are the people who want to say something nice. People who think you’re crap won’t bother. So it’s an asymmetric group”.