McKenzie

LSE 1945 - 1960: Post-war Britain: peace the welfare state and new tensions

1949
Robert McKenzie

The political scientist and broadcaster Robert Trelford McKenzie (1917-81) was a student at LSE from 1947-49 and a member of staff from 1949-81. War service brought Robert McKenzie, a lecturer from the University of British Columbia, to London where Harold Laski persuaded the Canadian to join the School and read for a Ph.D. McKenzie's doctoral thesis, subsequently published as British Political Parties: the Distribution of Power within the Conservative and Labour Parties (1955), proved a major contribution to twentieth-century British politics. His analysis revealed the underlying nature of the British political parties and his opinions remained influential until the emergence of a third strong political party and a realignment of internal power in the Labour Party altered the political landscape. He was appointed Professor of Sociology with special reference to Politics in 1964, and he was responsible for founding the discipline of political sociology in LSE and in Britain. He was a visiting professor of politics at Harvard and Yale in 1959-60. His Angels in Marble: Working Class Conservatism in Urban England (with A.Silver)(1968) was a political analysis of the conservative working class vote that sustained the conservative party's political position.

He combined his academic career with one as a radio and television broadcaster and journalist, but never allowed this to interfere with his vocation as a teacher and academic. As a broadcaster he became a popular household figure around the world as he commented on and illuminated British and political life. He was famous for his coverage of the British general elections and the 'swingometer' he used to indicate the percentage swing of votes and how this affected parliamentary seats during election night coverage on television. The device brought him celebrity, but its popularity should not outweigh the other aspect of his broadcast career as an informed interviewer of marked distinction. He interviewed substantial political figures including: the MPs Harold Macmillan, Hugh Gaitskell, Roy Jenkins, and Tony Benn for the BBC; the Lord Chancellor, Lord Hailsham, during the Profumo Affair in 1963; Dr. Martin Luther King in 1964; Bertrand Russell, Lord Boothby, Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, and Hugh Gaitskell for the US National Education programme 'Prospects of Mankind' in 1960.