Michael Thrasher is Professor of Politics at Plymouth University. His main research interests include voting systems, the decomposition of electoral bias, electoral forecasting and patterns of local election voting. In recent years he has also conducted surveys of local election candidates that have identified the types of people that stand and their motives for standing. Since 1985 he and Colin Rallings have compiled and published the Local Election Handbooks, an annual record of votes cast for each local authority. Over this period he has compiled and analysed the results of almost ten thousand local council by-elections, most recently for LGA’s First magazine. He and Rallings have contributed articles to the national press, providing electoral analysis for The Sunday Times since 1986. In 1989 he joined Sky News as the broadcaster’s elections analyst, assisting with coverage on general, local, mayoral  and European parliamentary elections, a number of by-election specials as well as a variety of referendums, elections for the devolved institutions in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  A short compilation of Sky News’ 2015 general election broadcast is here.