Senator Andrew Bartlett
Saturday, May 07, 2005
 
UK election – you cannot be serious?!

I really have difficulty figuring out why the big story from the UK election is not something like:
- “British Public Robbed - Electoral System a Sick Joke”,
- “19th Century Voting System determines 21st Century election result”,
- “Senile Electoral System from Ancient Democracy Caught Wandering Around in Full Public View”, or a variation on that theme (alternative headline suggestions welcome).

This posting from The Guardian's blog outlines the whole sorry story pretty well, but one line from it says more than enough:
For the first time*, a majority government in Britain has been elected by fewer people than those who could not be bothered to vote.
The "winner takes all" rules of Britain’s first past the post voting system mean Blair has a Commons majority of more than 65 despite the fact that only 21% of the 44 million electors supported his party - a record low in British electoral history.

So Blair wins a clear majority, ‘trouncing’ the Tories who got just 3 per cent fewer votes, while the Liberal Democrats are supposed to be happy with winning 8 extra seats, even though their 22 per cent of votes gets them fewer than 10 per cent of the seats. And this from the birthplace of Parliamentary democracy?? They cannot be serious …. but sadly they are.


* As the comments on the blog posting show, sadly it’s not the first time at all, which makes it all the more inexplicable why such a malodorous system still survives with minimal protest. (Link to The Guardian blog piece pinched from Larvatus Prodeo)


posted by Andrew Bartlett @ Saturday, May 07, 2005 Permalink
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