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May 06, 2005
Electoral 'travesty' favours Labour
Fascinating article in the FT, read it here.
For those in a rush:
The first-past-the-post system is so stacked in Labour's favour that it would be hard for Tony Blair to claim a popular mandate if, as the exit polls suggested, Labour had won only 37 per cent of the vote.
The last party to win a substantial Commons majority on a lower share of the vote was the Conservatives in 1922, when Andrew Bonar Law cruised to a 75-seat majority on 38 per cent of the vote, following the Liberal split.
According to the Electoral Reform Society, "this is probably the largest degree of bias the system has ever produced".
Posted by pauldavies on May 06, 2005
Comments
I find it especially annoying that Labour blatantly relied on this bias in the last few days of the campaign.
Indeed, this seems to be a deliberate attempt to rely on the distorting affect of FPTP.
It's also a blatant fib. In areas where Labour is third, a waverer between LibDem/Labour voting Labour means that the Tory is more likely to succeed. It's irrelevant whether one agrees with the result or not, it cannot be right that a party seeks to deliberately rely on a broken system in this way.
Posted by: Murk at May 7, 2005 08:33 AM
The link got cleaned from the above:
Posted by: Murk at May 7, 2005 08:34 AM
We're democrats and believe in free speech, but we're also committed to civil and rational debate. We reserve the right to delete material posted to our site, but we hope and expect to exercise this right rarely if at all.
