New annual lectures to recognise Sir David Butler

Policy 07 Feb 11 The first of a new series of annual lectures to recognise Sir David Butler of Nuffield College, Oxford, will take place tonight. The Reuters Institute/BBC David Butler lecture will explore the effect that the prime ministerial TV debates had on first-time voters. The study for Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University suggests that first-time voters in the UK 'formed a special relationship with the prime ministerial televised debates in striking contrast to their more jaded elders'. The findings of the research will be delivered in a lecture entitled 'Politics, Performance and Rhetoric - the 2010 Prime Ministerial Debates' . The leaders of the three main political parties, Gordon Brown (Labour), David Cameron (Conservative) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrat) took part in three televised debates in the run up to the general election on 6 May. This is the first academic study using a large-scale, nationally-representative sample of the UK population into how our voting behaviour was affected by the TV debates. Over half (55%) of the 18-24 year olds said that as a result of having seen the first debate they had become `more interested in the campaign', compared with less than a third (31%) of the 40-54 year-olds and just under a quarter (24%) of the respondents aged 55 and older.