Not The Election
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Thursday, 6th May 2010
I didn't want to talk about the election, but I just want to mention one thing. I wanted to explain why we need a change in how the electoral process works. There is a fundamental flaw to the whole process that means that the House Of Commons is NOT a representation of the Great British Public.
In the 2005 election, the results were roughly as follows (as a percentage of the population)
- Labour: 37%
- Conservative: 33%
- Liberal Democrats: 22%
- Others: 8%
There were 646 seats in parliament, so loosely speaking you would expect to see 37% of these going to Labour, 33% of them to the Conservatives and so on. But that's not how it works... oh no no! Here is the detail of what actually happened, compared to a proportional number of seats based on votes...
| Party | Proportional | Actual |
|---|---|---|
| TOTAL | 646 | 646 |
| Labour | 239 | 356 |
| Conservative | 213 | 198 |
| Liberal Democrats | 142 | 62 |
| Other | 52 | 30 |
Wow! What a difference. In particular, Labour got a lot more seats than we would have given them - to the tune of 117 seats (we being the registered-to-vote and turning up to do so British public!). Even the Conservatives got a benefit from this, to a much lesser extent. The real losers though are the Liberal Democrats - who finished up with less than half of the seats they would have been given under a proportional system (no wonder it's on their wish-list for the next Parliament.)
Interestingly, under the proportional system it is likely that the 2005 election would have resulted in a hung (or balanced) Parliament - and today's election probably wouldn't.
If you play with the maths for a bit, you can actually generate a scenario where the losing party (proportionally) still gets a majority and runs the country. Imagine that! It makes you cringe. How on earth can we introduce democracy to other countries when we allow that.
I have plenty more political ranting left, but it just isn't fair to dump it all on you - so you'll have to press me for more information over a pint of beer.