Hi everyone and welcome to today's episode of UK and a change in Europe's podcast.

I'm Paula Surridge and I'm one of the deputy directors at UK in a change in Europe

and as well as that I am an elections and data geek which I suspect will become clear as this podcast wears on.

Today I have with me Professor Will Jennings,

who's Professor of Political Science at the University of Southampton,

and Elections Analyst for Sky News.

So I guess we'll be seeing lots of his charts and analysis overnight

on the 4th and 5th of July.

And Dr. Jamie Furlong, research fellow at the University of Westminster

and previously part of Labour's targeting and analysis team.

And although it is very tempting just to talk to you too about the current election,

we're here to discuss your book, The Changing Electoral Map of England

and Wales, which has just been published by OUP, although we will undoubtedly get to the current

election eventually. So thank you both for joining me and I can imagine just how busy you both are. Congratulations on the publication of the

book which I think might have been ever so, ever so slightly rushed out in order to meet

the election deadline. But it's a real data feast for those that are interested in elections.

So as election analysts there's this tension between understanding what happened last time,

working out what might happen next time.

The media are very quick to move on, but I think if I've understood it, the argument of the book

is that to some extent those two tasks are inseparable,

which I think was your initial kind of spark for the project.

Is that right?

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