Anthony King, a Canadian by birth, came to Britain as Rhodes Scholar in the mid 1950s. He was a fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford from 1961 to 1965 and then moved to the University of Essex where he has been a professor in the Department of Government since 1969. Professor King collaborated with David Butler on the 1964 and 1966 Nuffield College election studies and since then has written and edited a large number of books on British government and politics, including SDP:The Birth, Life and Death of the Social Democratic Party (with Ivor Crewe) and New Labour Triumphs: Britain at the Polls, a study of the 1997 general election. He is also a student of American politics and in 1994 was elected an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Science. His most recent book on American politics, published in 1997, is entitled: Running Scared: Why American Politicans Campaign Too Much and Govern Too Little. In his role as journalist and broadcaster, Professor King commissions and analyses the Gallup Poll for the Daily Telegraph and appears frequently as a commentator on politics and elections on BBC Television and Radio. Between 1994 and 1998 Professor King was a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life (initially the Nolan Committee, latterly the Neill Committee). In 1999 he was a member of the Royal Commission on the Reform of the House of Lords. In 2000 he gave the Hamlyn Lectures at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London. A book based on the Lectures, Does Britain Still have a Constitution? was published early in 2001.
