Sunday 11 October 2009


The 54th Parliament of the United Kingdom is drawing to its inevitable close with elections expected next May. It seems very likely that our bizarre electoral system will result in a substantial majority of seats for the Conservative Party, led by Mr David Cameron, who if they are fortunate, may poll around two fifths of the votes. This may be regarded as a suitable punishment for 12 years of increasingly lacklustre and arrogant rule by the Labour Party, who have in elections since 1997 been able to command majorities in the House of Commons yet without getting anywhere near plurality of the votes.

For the record the figures cast for Labour were:


1997 43.2%
2001 40.7%
2005 35.3%

The last time a winning party polled a majority of the votes cast in a UK election was in 1931. The Labour landslide in 1945 resulted from their polling 49.71%; and the Conservative high point was in 1955 (49.7%).

So how is that the "Mother of Parliaments" is elected in this ramshackle fashion? The answer is of course that because the threshold of absolute power is set so low it is tempting for those in power to think that they can scrape through next time just by doing a bit better than the party which comes second.

This is quite correct of course. In 1945, the defeated Conservatives polled a higher percentage of the vote than the winning Labour party did in 2005 - winning 197 seats in 1945; and with Labour winning 356 seats in 2005.

The reason for this is the gradual decline of the two party system. From the mid 1970s, the Liberal Party, in its various guises, started to poll between 15% and 20% of the vote, figures not seen since the 1920s. In Scotland and Wales nationalist parties started winning seats. Consistuency fights were no longer two horse races; in some cases any one of four parties might be in with a chance.

The "first past the post" system is therefore no longer fit for purpose, and the truth is that a Government elected by it lacks legitimacy. Respect for politicians is at an all time low, and maybe these two things are connected. We have knee jerk policy making because no party can be seen to be ignoring the "public opinion" (expressed by newspapers of course(!)) that the electoral system does not take into account.

With that in mind, we can expect no more rationality from the Conservatives than we have seen from the Labour Party.

I hope to explore some of the likely legislative initiatives of the next Government over the next few months.

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