The fallout from the General Election is pretty much
done……leaders have left, political parties have stopped bickering and the press
is no longer obsessed with Nicola Sturgeon (thankfully!).
The one thing that will leave a long lingering sour taste
in the mouth is the current voting system……it just doesn’t work and is no
longer fit for purpose. Let me give you a few examples……
1.
UKIP received 13% of the overall votes (nearly 4
million votes) yet only got 1 seat (0.2% of the overall seats available).
2. Labour managed 36% of the seats……with 30% of the
overall votes. In fact, the number of overall votes they received was up yet
their number of seats was down in comparison to 2010.
3. Conservatives got 51% of the 650 seats available
in Parliament……yet only got 37% of the votes overall. When was 37% ever a
majority?
4. Conservatives got just over 11 million votes and
330 seats compared to UKIP that received 4 million votes and 1 seat. The
Scottish National Party got only 1.5 million votes yet 56 seats in Parliament.
And don’t get me started on the Democratic Unionist Party……185,000 votes and 8
seats in Parliament (the same number of seats as the Liberal Democrats who got
2.5 million votes!).
Everywhere I look in the General Election results there
are contradictions between the number of votes received and the number of seats
obtained……Conservatives and Scottish National Party ‘over earned’ seats in
comparison to votes won……UKIP and Labour should feel hard done by.
All in all, it is a mess. The results and the ultimate
makeup of our next Parliament are not a fair representation of what the people
voted for.
But when were the people ever important in politics
anyway?
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