Journalism academic set for ninth night of general election analysis

As election fever hits the UK, one University of Leicester academic is about to cover his ninth UK general election night.

Tor Clark, Associate Professor in Journalism, reported on his first UK general election for the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph in 1992, and on Thursday night will be in the BBC Leicester studios as the results analyst for the BBC Leicester live all-night election results programme, hosted by Ben Jackson.

This will be the fifth time Tor has joined the BBC Leicester general election night coverage, alongside BBC Leicester political reporter Tim Parker, and Alistair Jones, Associate Professor in Politics at De Montfort University.

Tor has also had a chapter published in a new book about Thursday’s general election called General Election 2024: The Media and the Messengers, edited by John Mair, Andrew Beck and John Ryley.

He said: “I have always loved politics and enjoyed covering local and national politics on newspapers before I became an academic 20 years ago.

“But I have managed to continue writing and broadcasting about politics since I became an academic, as well as teaching political journalism courses here at Leicester and previously at DMU.”

Tor will be part of the BBC Leicester election night live broadcast starting at 10pm on Thursday night and broadcasting through the night until almost all the results are in at 6am.

He added: “This general election will see huge changes, the biggest we’ve seen since 2010, possibly even since 1997, when Labour won a landslide. It will be exciting to see history being made and to be able to contextualise it as it happens for listeners.”

Tor’s chapter in the new book looks at the lessons to be learned from the previous eight general elections he has covered.

The book is an edited collection of work by leading academics and journalists including chapters by BBC polling expert Sir John Curtice, former Sky political editor Adam Boulton, ex-BBC reporter Barnie Choudhury from Leicester and New European columnist Liz Gerard.