Many debts have been incurred in the course of writing this book. We are most grateful to all party officers, particularly Joyce Gould, Peter Coleman and Vicky Phillips at Labour Party headquarters, and Sir Tom Arnold, Andrew Mitchell and Victoria Braxton at Conservative Central Office, for patiently answering our many queries and providing access to certain records. Conservative agents who helped provide information included Rachel Dyche, Martin Perry, and Donald Stringer. Labour agents and regional officers who helped included Paul Wheeler and Eileen Murfin. The surveys depended upon the constituencies which welcomed us to their meetings, and all MPs, candidates, applicants and party members who took time from busy schedules to complete the questionnaire, or to be interviewed during the course of the project.

We greatly appreciate the support of the Economic and Social Research Council who financed the study (Research grant 0000–23–1991). We would also like to thank Anthony Heath, Roger Jowell and John Curtice who collaborated to establish comparable data between the BCS and the British Election Study, 1992, and Pat Seyd and Paul Whiteley who provided data from the Labour Party Membership survey. The research assistants who helped administer the survey at Edinburgh and Loughborough universities included Andrew Geddes, Jackie Goode, Denise McKnight, Ian Ross, and Catriona Burness. We are most grateful to everyone who took time to read and comment on all or part of the draft typescript, or of publications emerging from the project, including Malcolm Anderson, Hugh Berrington, Alice Brown, Ivor Crewe, David Denver, Janet Ford, Michael Gallagher, Sarah Perrigo, Michael Rush, Elizabeth Vallance, and Alan Ware, as well as party officers already mentioned.