Ivor Crewe and Anthony King are Professors of Government at the University of Essex, and frequent contributors to the national media. Anthony King is a member of the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life.

"British political science at its best, combining intimate knowledge of the players with a firm grasp of the numbers, all gracefully and thoughtfully presented."--Choice

"There is scarcely a serious student of contemporary British politics, on either side of the Atlantic, who will fail to enjoy and profit intellectually from reading this book. Exhaustively researched, intelligently and cogently written and effectively organized, SDP is unquestionably the definitive study to date of the political party that provocatively vowed, upon its launch only a short decade and a half ago, to "break the mould" of postwar British politics."--British Politics Group Newsletter