Observations

With dozens of English councils facing local government reorganisation, the government has given 63 authorities until 15 January to request a delay to May 2025 elections. In this episode, Lily Russell-Jones speaks with Peter Stanyon of the Association of Electoral Administrators about the unprecedented dilemma facing local democracy. Should elections proceed as planned, or should councils postpone...

In this After Dark special, host Joshua Paisley speaks with Professor Steve Fielding about the 1972 Oscar-winning film The Candidate, released just months before Richard Nixon's landslide victory over George McGovern. Robert Redford plays Bill McKay, a handsome young radical community lawyer picked to run an unwinnable California Senate race against an 18-year Republican incumbent—on the promise t...

In this After Dark special, host John Ault speaks with Ursula Buchan, granddaughter of novelist John Buchan and author of the definitive biography Beyond the 39 Steps, about how elections shaped her grandfather's fiction. Before becoming famous for his spy thrillers, Buchan spent years as the prospective Conservative and Unionist candidate for Peebles and Selkirk, visiting every farmstead in the S...

Celebrate the season by supporting democracy. Our Christmas Auction is now live, with 100 unique lots to bid on – from unforgettable experiences to signed memorabilia and festive treats. Every bid helps us train observers and protect transparent, fair elections across the UK and beyond in 2026. Bid now, share with friends, and make your Christmas giving count. https://www.jumblebee.co.uk/democracy...

In this After Dark special, host Joshua Paisley speaks with Professor Steven Fielding, a political historian at the University of Nottingham, about the 2006 BBC drama The Amazing Mrs Pritchard. Written by Sally Wainwright (who would go on to create Happy Valley and Gentleman Jack), the six-part series imagined what would happen if an ordinary Yorkshire superstore manager won a landslide election a...

In this episode, host John Ault speaks with Chris Mullin, former Labour MP and author of A Very British Coup, about his 1982 novel that imagined what would happen if a radical socialist Prime Minister won a landslide—and the establishment decided to destroy him. Published when Tony Benn was in the ascendant and making the establishment nervous, Mullin created Harry Perkins: a Sheffield steel worke...

In 1988, Channel 4 aired A Very British Coup, a political drama that imagined what would happen if a radical socialist Prime Minister won a landslide—and the establishment decided to destroy him. Adapted from Chris Mullin's novel, the series follows Harry Perkins, a working-class Labour leader who promises to scrap nuclear weapons, leave NATO, and restore industries to public ownership. But the in...

In this special episode, host Lily Russell-Jones explores one of the government's most controversial electoral reforms: lowering the voting age to 16. With Scotland and Wales already allowing younger voters in some elections, is this a positive step for democracy or a risky experiment? Eddie Barnes from the John Smith Centre at Glasgow University shares polling that reveals young people themselves...

In this episode, Ethan Reuter speaks with historian Taym Saleh about the 1924 general election—the autumn showdown that cemented Britain's two-party system and buried the Liberal Party as a national force. After three elections in just 23 months, Stanley Baldwin's Conservatives swept to a crushing 200-seat majority while Herbert Asquith lost his seat and the Liberals collapsed from 155 MPs to a me...

In this special episode recorded on location in The Hague, Joshua interviews Harry Bush about Democracy Volunteers' seventh observation mission to the Netherlands. Harry explains how Dutch elections work differently from the UK—the entire country acts as a single 150-seat constituency using proportional representation, with voters choosing both a party and a candidate from lists of up to 80 names....

In this episode, Ethan Reuter speaks with historian Taym Saleh about the 1906 general election—the winter showdown that delivered the last great Liberal landslide and set the stage for the welfare state. After riding jingoistic euphoria to victory in 1900, the Conservative-Unionist coalition collapsed spectacularly, reduced from a 150-seat majority to a miserable rump of just 157 MPs. The conversa...

In this episode, Ethan Reuter speaks with David Redvaldsen of the University of Agder in Norway about the 1929 general election—Britain's first truly universal suffrage election. After the 1928 Representation of the People Act finally granted women the vote on equal terms with men, millions of young women, the so-called flappers, went to the polls for the first time alongside a fully enfranchised...

In this episode, Ethan Reuter speaks with Dr. Luke Blaxill about the extraordinary 1918 general election—the first after the Great War and the first under the Representation of the People Act, which tripled the electorate overnight. Held just six weeks after armistice amid demobilisation and the influenza pandemic, this was democracy's leap into the great unknown. The conversation explores the dra...

In this episode, Ethan Reuter speaks with Dr. Luke Blaxill, historian and Oxford college lecturer, about the 1832 general election that followed Britain's Great Reform Act. This wasn't just an election—it was a constitutional turning point that redrew the boundaries of British democracy itself. The conversation explores the turbulent lead-up to reform, from the July Revolution in France to widespr...

We are stepping into the world of satire with the classic BBC comedy Blackadder. In one of its sharpest episodes, ‘Dish and Dishonesty’ we’re taken to the so-called Dunny-on-the-Wold by-election — a contest for a “rotten borough” so small it has only one voter… and even he’s dead. Our guest for this episode will be none other than William Pitt the Younger, himself. Played by Simon Osborne in the B...

In this episode, Matt Davis interviews Lord David Alton about his extraordinary victory in the 1979 Liverpool Edge Hill by-election. At just 27 years old, Alton achieved one of the most stunning upsets in British electoral history, overturning a massive Labour majority in one of their safest seats during the Winter of Discontent. The conversation explores how a young Liberal teacher and councillor...

The UK’s overseas postal voting system is failing — extended enfranchisement without operational capacity has created a perfect storm of lost ballots, tight timetables and systemic disenfranchisement. In this document we report alarmingly low return rates for overseas packs (average c.52% vs 81% domestically) and we explain how batching practices, snap-election application surges and short statuto...

Win the votes, buy the votes, steal the votes, invalidate the votes! There is a lot that can go right - and so much that can go wrong - in a Ukrainian election. From the opening of the campaign through to the final decision on the results, it is a rollercoaster ride for the candidates, the election workers, and the international observers who have travelled from afar to see it all. In What Ukraini...

Lily Russell-Jones interviews Director of Democracy Volunteers, Dr. John Ault, on the deployment of observers at the Norwegian Parliamentary Election. The interview covers topics from changes in law affecting family voting through to potential foreign interference, listen in to learn the intricacies of polling day in Norway.

Over the coming weeks Democracy Volunteers and the Observations Podcast will be guiding you through some of the most historic general elections in the UK. From the 1832 election which brought in the first seeds of parliamentary reform, the 1906 Liberal landslide, the Coupon Election of 1918 up to the 1997 Labour win and the 2010 election which delivered the first coalition since the war, our team...

This year, Democracy Volunteers celebrates a decade of independent election observation . Since our founding in 2015, we have grown to become Western Europe’s leading election observation organisation, working at home and abroad to improve the quality of elections and to strengthen public confidence in the democratic process. Over the past ten years, our observers have been on the ground in pollin...

In this episode, Matt Davis sits down with Trudy Harrison, who won the Copeland by-election in 2017, overturning decades of Labour dominance in the constituency. Trudy reflects on the dramatic campaign that brought her into Parliament, the issues that defined the contest, and what it was like to step into national politics through such a high-profile victory.  From the pressures of campaignin...

On 1 September 2025, Guyana heads to the polls in one of the most closely watched elections in its history. With the country transformed by its oil boom and politics shaped by fragile coalitions, the stakes could not be higher. In this special episode, Matt Davis speaks with political analyst Dr. Duane Edwards of the University of Guyana about the key players, shifting alliances, and what’s at ris...

Taras Kuzio is a British Professor of Political Science at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy (Kyiv, Ukraine). His area of study is Russian and Ukrainian political, economic and security affairs. Matt Davis interviews Dr. Kuzio, an internationally respected expert in Ukrainian and Russian politics. In this episode Matt discusses the 2004 Ukrainian Election around the Orange Revolution...

Our 'Elections that Shook the World' series leads Matt Davis to interview two leading academics who were part of the changes that brought democracy to South Africa in 1994. Professor Nancy Jacobs of Brown University in the United States. She is an historian of South Africa and of colonial Africa and her power in obscure corners including a mysterious and forgotten diplomatic initiative. She was a...