“I’m not entirely unfamiliar with Bettys,” says Professor John Curtice, days before his forthcoming appearance at the Harrogate Literature Festival.

Prof Curtice says he’s been to the town only “on the odd occasion” but displayed a sharp understanding of the local political landscape during our interview.

“Oh, you have to mug up on these things,” he says modestly. But the ease with which he talks about everything from the Liberal Democrats in Harrogate and Knaresborough to the North Yorkshire Council elections in May 2027 makes it easy to see why he is one of Britain’s most sought-after political commentators.

Harrogate, he says, “is a nice, pretty place that wouldn’t look out of place in Surrey” and its affluence and size makes it fertile Lib Dem territory.

He’s quick to point out the area has had previous Lib Dem MPs but says the party’s 2024 success, when it gained 64 seats, including Harrogate and Knaresborough, was due to it targeting traditional ‘blue wall’ Conservative areas — plus the impact of Reform UK taking votes away from the Tories and Labour effectively standing down.

Although Harrogate and Knaresborough MP Tom Gordon looks well placed to retain his seat, the party is languishing fifth in the national polls on about 10%.

Prof Curtice, who is professor of politics at the University of Strathclyde, says the Lib Dems have a major problem. 

The two-party system is “more cracked than it’s ever been”, he says, but the Lib Dems are “not the ones cracking it”. He adds:

Is party leader Sir Ed Davey — criticised last week by Mr Gordon — the problem?

Prof Curtice says polling shows Sir Ed is “not as popular as he needs to be” and his personal style is less effective than it was in 2024 when he was up against “technocrats” Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak.

He says Labour’s Andy Burnham, Tory Kemi Badenoch and Green Zack Polanski are all “conviction politicians” who can “articulate the country they want to create” while people are less clear of Sir Ed’s vision. “There are rumblings within the party on whether he is the right person to lead them into the next election,” he acknowledges.

Gloomy outlook for Tories

North Yorkshire’s most powerful political figure now is Labour metro mayor David Skaith. Creating a mayor in England’s largest county has fuelled debate on whether local democracy has become too remote, and whether one person has too much power.

Prof Curtice says the last British Social Attitudes research on mayors was in 2012 but fresh research is being conducted in November this year, so “ask me again in spring” about metro mayors.

Spring will also see the first North Yorkshire Council elections for five years. 

The Conservatives currently have 41 of 90 councillors and Prof Curtice says the national polls suggest there is little chance of them winning overall control. Reform UK and the Lib Dems, he says, “could do a lot of damage” to the Tories, who despite the uplifting buzz at this week’s party conference are still polling less than they were in 2024, he says.

“It’s a long time until May but if Reform remain at their current level and the Tories are no better then the Tories won’t maintain control,” he says.

Whoever controls North Yorkshire will, it seems, need the support of another party. Will the Conservatives form a pact with Reform? Will the Lib Dems and Greens work together? It’s exciting times for political anoraks, and few people make it sound more exciting than Prof Curtice, 72.

Local people will get the chance to question him when he visits Harrogate on October 22.

He says he’s coming to Harrogate following an invitation from TV and radio presenter Matt Stadlen, who will host their question-and-answer session, which is billed as ‘making sense of British politics’. 

It also helped that he has an appearance lined up in Liverpool the following day.

“It’s pure serendipity that I can bunch the two things together,” he says. “Harrogate and Liverpool might not seem that close together to people who live there but they do when you live where I do in West Scotland."

Prof John Curtice will appear at the Crown Hotel in Harrogate as part of the Raworths Harrogate Literature Festival on October 22 at 4.30pm. More information here.