From the Guardian….

Last night a batch of new polls pointed again to a hung parliament. An ICM survey in the Sunday Telegraph placed the Conservatives on 35% (+2), the Liberal Democrats on 31% (+1) and Labour on 26% (-2), giving the Tories around 284 seats, Labour 232 and the Lib Dems 102.

can someone explain the huge discrepancies in % of the vote and number of seats? i have never had any interest in politics, hence this aspect of life knowledge has passed me by. if this turned out to be the case and i was a lib dem i'd be **** furious that being much less popular gave labour more than twice as many seats…

if this turned out to be the case and i was a lib dem i'd be **** furious that being much less popular gave labour more than twice as many seats..

It's hardly Labour's fault that the LibDems have their support spread out thinly throughout the country.

If the LibDems had their supporters in higher concentration than Labour or the Tories, then the reverse could be true – ie the LibDems could end up with more seats than other parties despite having less votes.

It's the way the cookie crumbles……..but it crumbles the same way for everyone.

can someone explain the huge discrepancies in % of the vote and number of seats

cos it's about seats not the votes over the country.

Constituency boundaries. You can have two constituencies (let's say A and B) with 1000 people in each, and a total of 1499 Tory voters and 501 Labour voters. If there are 1000 Tory voters in A, then A will return a Tory MP. B will still have an overall Labour majority, and return a Labour MP.

So with a rough 75:25 split, you can get a 50:50 split in terms of MPs elected.

In odder situations, you can have constituencies C, D, E and F, where C consists of 1000 votors, D, E and F all consist of 500 voters each, but each constituency still gets an MP…

If you look back at the 2005 election, the split between parties wasn't that big in terms of overall votes cast – I think it was 36% to the Tories and 37 or 38% to Labour, but a massive difference in seats.

There have been arguments in the past for the redrawing of constituency boundaries as Labour tend to do well for the number of votes actually cast for them.

However, there is an element of this kind of exaggerated result built into the first past the post system, which can be useful in terms of avoiding hung parliaments…

Not sure if I understand it correctly, but it doesn't seem particularly democratic.

+1 for Tron's explanation. The argument for electoral reform should be about proportional representation though, not about redrawing boundaries to bias another political party.

can someone explain the huge discrepancies in % of the vote and number of seats?

It's because we have an archaic and clearly unfair sytem of election.

The alternative of course is that iDave is not thick but that Guardian journalists are biased in their interpretation, something they have proved regularly over the years.

Edukator, is that the worst troll I've ever seen? 😆

Not sure if I understand it correctly, but it doesn't seem particularly democratic.

Keeerrrching…

It ain't. There is a small chance that Labour could get the smallest percentage of the popular vote, but still have a majority of MPs

The Economist had an interesting point a couple of weeks ago, expanding on Tron's explanation – apparently Labour get roughly 1 seat per c30,000 votes; for the Tories it's about 1 for every 45,000 votes, and for the Lib Dems it's closer to 1 every 95000 votes, due to the way they're spread about.,

What's the percentage for all parties, and what would it be if we had proportional representation ?
I suspect a lot more people would vote for the minority parties if they didn't see it as a wasted vote.
The current system keeps government alternating between the two main parties and helps maintain the illusion of democracy.

It's the way the cookie crumbles……..but it crumbles the same way for everyone.

Except that it doesn't.

The system is ridiculous and REAL change is needed not that false bollox that Dave is pretending to offer.

The current system keeps government alternating between the two main parties and helps maintain the illusion of democracy.

Yup.

What tron said.

To take it to it's logical conclusion, assume 630 seats and population of 60m evenly spread across all constituancies and that everybody votes.
A party could win 100% of seats with 30,000,630 votes to 29,999,370 if they won each seat by the minimum necessary amount.
Actually, it's theoretically possible that they could win 100% of the seats on an exact 50:50 split of the vote, a dead heat in each constituancy. If there is a dead heat the procedure is to have a recount (or two or three recounts until everyone is satisified it is really a dead heat) If it is still a tie the returning officer is to conduct a toss of a coin!

By the way, PR is a really bad idea.
The advantage is that it does give party a 'fair' share of the seats, but the down side is that the parties will choose who your MP is to be, you will vote for a party and not for a person. I'm not saying FPTP is perfect, it's just less bad.

nicko74, I'd be very interested to know what those percentages were before the current shamLabour government came to power. I believe there have been quite a few changes to voting areas etc since then. I wonder why.

CFH – you know that your beloved Tories did exactly the same thing when they were in power don't you?

been quite a few changes to voting areas etc since then. I wonder why.

North of the border the boundries were redrawn when the number of westminster MPs was reduced following devolution.
Interestingly, this and the Dunfermline by-election means that Gordon Brown's local MP is a lib dem…

If it is still a tie the returning officer is to conduct a toss of a coin!

So it's theoretically possible to have a general election result evenly split and decided by the toss of a coin ? …….now I'm getting excited about May the 6th 8)

Which returning officer would be the tosser by the way ?

andrewh – I disagree… say you live in an area, lets pick West Ox as an example, a true Tory strong hold, callmedave will, without question, be claiming his seat here…. what's the point in a West Ox constituent voting under FPTP regardless of their political persuasion, but especially if they're not Tory??

what's the point in a West Ox constituent voting under FPTP regardless of their political persuasion, but especially if they're not Tory??

If everyone thought like that, none at all.
If everyone bothered to vote, who knows.

PS. I'm not saying the coin tossing is likely, just possible.

I think in most PR countries you need to get 5% of the vote to get your first seat – it keeps the inevitable jedi party style counter culture demonstration votes from getting a seat (and of course the BNP).

Current system is still a chronic problem though, I just don't think its reasonable to say "that's the way the cookie crumbles" as above as an reasoned explanation.

Whilst I can't see our current crop of adversarial MPs making an awful lot happen in a hung parliament scenario, maybe over time a new breed of mps that, heaven forbid, actually listen to each other might be able to make it work better than the current ya bo polarised system we have now.

If everyone thought like that, none at all.
If everyone bothered to vote, who knows.

+1

the down side is that the parties will choose who your MP is to be, you will vote for a party and not for a person

Yes, and? Does it really matter that much exactly who your MP is?

I'm not saying FPTP is perfect, it's just less bad.

I'm still not convinced by what the end product of PR will be, but suggesting it's worse than FPTP just because you don't get to vote for a particular personality (when MPs' main job should be to legislate, not be social workers) is a somewhat bizarre position.

you will vote for a party and not for a person

have you seen the candidates standing in South Northants? If they're any way representative of the standard of people hoping to become MPs then not voting for a person is not an issue

Whilst I can't see our current crop of adversarial MPs making an awful lot happen in a hung parliament scenario, maybe over time a new breed of mps that, heaven forbid, actually listen to each other might be able to make it work better than the current ya bo polarised system we have now.

I presume you'd describe yourself as an optimist, convert?

As an aside, and partly in response to aracer and nickc, how does PR affect independant candidates? I can see how they can be elected under FPTP.
Serious question, not just being arguementative.

Is it that obvious Southern yeti? 😥

What's needed is a properly democratic electoral system like this.

If I hadn't voted the man on the left would have only had 18,983,137 votes. My favourite candidate was knocked out in the first round but I was still able to choose the lesser of two evils. Nice to know one's vote counts and is counted.

Trust me I will be voting, but it would seem that under FPTP voting in party strongholds is a formality.

In a democracy your vote counts.
In feudalism your count votes.

Good thread.

Does it really matter that much exactly who your MP is?

Of course it does, they are the ones that have to represent their constituency and the particular needs, worries, demands that are relevant to the constituents that reside there.

Good point, andrewh – that is a definitive disadvantage of PR. Though I'm guessing that whatever system we do get if they change things will be a mixed one, still involving (larger) constituencies in which independents can be elected.

Of course it does, they are the ones that have to represent their constituency and the particular needs, worries, demands that are relevant to the constituents that reside there.

So you know your MP personally, and he/she was elected solely because he/she does such a good job for the constituents rather than because of what party they stood for? Also see my point above about legislators vs social workers.

How many independant MP's have been elected in the last 50 or so years and what real impact have they had? Meaning is it really something to be concerned about?

How many independant MP's have been elected in the last 50 or so years and what real impact have they had? Meaning is it really something to be concerned about?

For a proper democracy to work, yes. It doesn't matter how likely they are to get elected, but anyone who wants to should be able to stand for parliment, not just those chosen by a party.

ok, thanks for the insight. i will go back to having no interest in politics as quite clearly my vote is **** pointless. i will vote this time, but not entirely sure why.

Consider how different the world would be today and how many British lives would have been saved if the American election system were democratic. More people voted for Gore than Bush but Gore lost.

There's a very good chance of getting rid of our awful system this time though, as long as we get what most people want which is a hung parliament.

Of course it does, they are the ones that have to represent their constituency and the particular needs, worries, demands that are relevant to the constituents that reside there.

In theory – except of course that they almost all tow the party line and vote how they are told on anything important.

Fair point.. but… in some ways an independant could have more chance under PR. They could appeal to the whole of the country not just their own area. Take Galloway and his Unite movement from 2005.