God, but the fucking Guardianista are still fucking whingeing about the election result. This time, Andrew Rawnsley is complaining that we woz robbed.
There is a big, basic and brute reason why we have just heard a Tory Queen’s speech, will soon be listening to a Tory budget and have five years or so of Tory law-making ahead of us. It is so bloody obvious that no one is talking about it – it is the electoral system.
By no normal definition of the word popular were the Conservatives popular at the election. They received 36.9% of the vote. By no normal definition of the word mandate did they get the endorsement of the electorate to fully implement their manifesto. Nearly two-thirds of voters did not put their cross in the Tory box.
Sigh… Yes, that’s how first past the post works. it’s how it has always worked – exactly how it worked when it put Tony Blair into power with a huge majority on similar turnouts and similar vote shares. I don’t recall the Guardianista complaining about it then.
However…
Some have attributed their shock majority to the dark arts of Lynton Crosby. Others to the lack of appeal of Ed Miliband. Some opine that the Tory win demonstrates that the English are an essentially conservative people. Others think Labour’s failure is a symptom of a worldwide crisis in social democracy. On they go, the theories. I have barely touched on the many interesting explanations for what happened. And they are all wrong.
Actually, no, they’re not. Because sufficient numbers of people reacted in exactly that way and they did so in enough numbers to put Cameron into power with a slim majority. England is a very conservative country – and many, even those who did not vote for the Tories are appalled at the displays of pique we have seen, the mobs behaving like spoiled children and bullying people they dislike. And, frankly, the endless stream of whining from the Guardianista.
He is right in that votes did not transform into seats and the SNP having more seats with fewer votes than, say Ukip, seems disproportionate. So, all that said, I don’t like first past the post and never have and as I live longer, I find that increasingly I don’t much rate democracy. It is simply that the alternatives don’t offer much cause for optimism. But where was Rawnsley complaining in 1997, 2001 and 2005?
What a complete prat Rawnsley is! Still, he’s in good company.
Hello Longrider,
Have you ever visited this blog?
http://neilharding.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/flexibility-is-key-to-good-voting-system.html
The last few entries here describes a fairer voting system which doesn’t go into endless complications.
Regards
theonlygoodeuisadeadeu
I’ve not had any dealings with Neil Harding for several years. He was a staunch Labour acolyte and spouted their nonsense to the point of driving me up the wall. Yet he does sometimes have liberal ideas – narcotics, for example.
Over 24% of the electorate said “We want the Tories”. But about 33% of the electorate didn’t vote, effectively saying “We’ll go along with what you guys decide”. By my reckoning the Tories have the support of over 57% of the electorate. That’s a majority isn’t it?
Er, no. Abstention does not mean “I agree with whatever the majority wants”. It just means “I choose not to vote.” There are many reasons for making that choice. Apathy is merely one possible reason for not voting, but it is not the only reason. There is certainly no concrete evidence to suggest that it is the *main* reason either.
One of my main problems with the electoral process is knowing full well that my vote is going to be utterly wasted in a First Past The Post System. I tended to vote Lib-Dem while living in the UK, but have never lived anywhere that they’d be likely to win given the FPTP system’s quirks. So why bother? My voice literally counts for nothing. Which is why I finally decided to move to a country where the electoral system isn’t so flagrantly undemocratic.
FPTP is an anachronism today. The Guardianistas are right about that, but their hypocrisy in not caring about changing the system until now is very telling: switching to a PR-based system was the main rallying cry of the Lib-Dems for many years; where were the Guardianistas back then?
There’s also no “None Of The Above” option available for those who really, really don’t want *any* of the current shower of fools, so ballot-spoiling and abstention are their only viable alternatives. As spoiled ballots tell us nothing about the voter’s underlying intent, that just leaves abstention as the only alternative. (One could try running as an “Independent”, but it’s not without its costs. Again, the FPTP system means everything is stacked against you.)
The First Past The Post system really should have been replaced back in the 1920s, when it was clear that the Whigs and the Tories no longer had Parliament all to themselves. That system only works when there are just two main parties involved.
The FPTP system is the reason that the full five parliament act should never have been effected. It doesn’t ‘tie in’ with imbalance of the FPTP electoral results. No government elected by that system should be guaranteed a five year term. The key is the appointment of the prime minister by the Queen, who represents all the people. That gives him/her certain king-like powers, which Cameron gave away to please the LibDems. Where are the LibDems now?
Don’t recall the Guardian ever moaning about ‘unfair’ constituency boundaries giving Labour an inherent advantage; or about the fact that every Labour government since World War II has only been in place because of the up-until-now solid Labour returns from the hairy-arsed Picts north of the border.
Yes, there were no complaints when Blair won a majority of 66 on 35% of votes (and a mere 21.6% of the electorate). It’s different when Labour do it.
But people should stop repeating this:
…because it’s not true. The Scottish Labour seats have increased Labour majorities, but only in the February 1974 and 1964 elections did they change who was largest party (and Labour got more votes that the Conservatives in 1964).