The first election I remember (although I couldn’t vote in it) was 1983. That was the year that the SDP and Labour split the ‘left’ vote almost perfectly and the Tories won a huge majority on what was actually a reduced share of the vote. That was when I understood how ludicrously unfair FPTP was (and joined electoral reform campaign groups as a result!)
What happened this year was that this finally happened to the Tories in the same way, but it was also just at the same time as the ‘non-Tory’ vote* was finally able to focus itself correctly meaning that the Tories had to fight on three entirely different fronts (Labour, the LibDems and Reform) in various different places; of course they were doomed. If we’d had a turnout of 70% or even 65%, they’d have been down to those more extreme predictions of just 50 seats.
Next time around, Labour won’t be interested in the 70 LibDem seats (since they’d have to lose >150 of their own seats for that to make a difference) whereas the LibDems can continue to creep in on some of the remaining Tory ones. I think the Tories do understand this, but they have very little they can do about it (cue very tiny violin.)
*in most urban areas, Labour are actually more threatened by the rise of the Greens who frequently came second. I am almost willing to put money on one or more London councils unexpectedly actually going ‘Green’ at the next local elections.
I agree. It was more of an observation about myself that my enthusiasm about PR noticably wanes in the moment it favors a (not a) party I intensely dislike. It’s still the fairer system as long as some safeguards like the 5% rule against the complete splintering of the political landscape are in place.
Even without general elections, there is some sort of election every 2-3 years in the UK. Because there is representation from the town council level up through country councils to district mayors and crime commissioners. The devolved national assemblies. The people should be registered to vote for all of these.
You know, there are countries where this is such a matter of course that nobody even thinks about it. People just show up at their usual polling station and vote. Of course it’s those countries that also have the scary, scary ID cards.
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