Blogs 2005/05/07

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2005/05/07 - Seats are not votes

I have always suspected that elections that rely on the first past the post system are not really fair and that it is the little parties that lose out. However it would appear that not only do the little ones lose out but the big ones win.

Numbers etc from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/html/scoreboard.stm.

As you can see from the graph the three big parties represent the three possible scenarios. Labour have more seats than they ought, the Lib Dems have less and the Conservatives are properly represented.

Down in the low numbers UKIP, the Greens and the BNP should all have a few seats by votes but achieved none.

It is (I think) quite interesting that if we had proportional representation then the political landscape (awful phrase) would be quite different. Labour would not have an overall majority but would be pretty much the same as the Tories. The Lib Dems would still be the third party but would have the control if the other two disagree.

Cynically I would suggest that as politicians rarely get anything right and seem to enjoy a good shout either side of a good meal this would suit them well. With three parties all roughly equal nothing really contentious would get through the house. Not too bad really.

PS apologies for the ugly graph. Excel does not appear to let you export a graph to an image without going via a screenshot.