First past the post does not serve us well

In  December’s General Election, the Conservatives won an extra 48 seats, an increase of 7.4 percent on an increase in votes of only 1.3 percent.

On a similar vote share, Theresa May lost her majority.

In Bromley & Chislehurst constituency, Bob Neill won 23,958 votes. His nearest rival, Labour, won 13,067 votes. In other words, Bob Neill could have won on only 13,068 votes. So, 10,890 people who voted for Bob Neill, wasted their votes, because he was already home and dry without them.

 

In a more rational, more democratic system, those 10,890 voters could have expressed a second, third and fourth preference had they so wished.

In the constituency 21,608 voters, who did not vote for Bob Neill, saw their votes totally wasted; meaningless, just as if they had not turned up to vote at all.  Small wonder that so many millions across the country who were registered to vote did not turn out and so many did not even bother to register.

 

It is a crazy system. The Tories got 43.6 percent of the vote, but 56.2 percent of the seats.

The votes needed per MP reveals stark anomalies.

It took 38,264 votes to elect a Tory, 50,835 to elect a Labour MP, 336,038 to elect a Lib Dem. The Brexit Party won 644,255 votes, but no sears.

The Green Party won 865,00 votes, but just one seat.

 

This mad First-past-the-post (FPTP) system is defended by both the Conservative and Tory parties because, although it makes no sense, it has served them well. Even when it does not serve them very well, they continue to defend it in the hope that next time its unfairness will work in their favour.

The odd thing is that there are better systems already in use in the UK.

Various forms of proportional representation are in use for Scottish local elections;  all elections in Northern Ireland apart from UK General Elections; elections to the devolved assemblies of Scotland and Wales and were used for elections to the European Parliament.