What if the electoral system were proportional?

Well… The electoral circus is behind us, the nation has spoken, and Mr Cameron is standing on a shiny new pedestal with the noose of a promised EU-referendum dangling around his neck. I wish him well for the next five years – if five years they be…

But now that the true event is behind us, it is time to contemplate in perfect calm the wondrous system which brought the Tory leader his unexpected absolute majority. As everybody surely is aware, this is the winner-takes-all ‘first past the post’ voting arrangement, in which the party most voted in any of the 650 electoral boroughs gets the seat in parliament, never mind if that party only received a tenth - or even less – of the ballot.

Of course there are things to be said in favour of this system; the most significant argument being that it tends to give the government a working majority in the House of Commons, and avoids the muddled time-consuming coalition negotiations and horse deals inherent in a proportional system of voting (see for instance Belgium, which last time around was without a national government for some 400 days; a period when, incidentally and ironically, the country was not governed any worse than usual…)

However, what cannot be said in favour of the present system is that it is fair. It blatantly favours the biggest parties – usually two – and flushes down the electoral toilet a tremendous number of votes cast for smaller, often more idealistic parties, whose voters effectively find themselves unrepresented for the next five years. Just so that you be aware just how unfair the system is, dear reader, Alfred B. Mittington has fiddled around with the numbers a little (he is good at that!) and offers you below a comparison of the composition of the House of Commons under the First Past The Post system and the alternative proportional representation, based on yesterday’s results.

Just so you can check me: the total of the electorate stood at roughly 46,500,000 yesterday. Of these, 66 % turned out to vote. So under the proportional system, it would take slightly more than 47,000 votes to gain a seat in parliament (30,700,000 of votes cast divided by 650 seats). And these are the results:

Party	Votes	%	FPTP	Proportional
Conservative	11334920	36,9	331	240
Labour	9347326	30,4	232	198
Ukip	3881129	12,6	1	82
LibDems	2415888	7,9	8	51
SNP	1454436	4,7	56	31
Greens	1157613	3,8	1	25
Soc Dem & Lab	99809	0,3	3	2
Rest	996059	3,4	18	21
TOTALS	30687180	100	650	650

Now, the British nation famously appreciates fairness; and so I dare say that anyone with a head on his shoulder and a heart in his breast will admit that – no matter one’s personal political preference – the present system is ruthlessly unjust to parties like the Greens and UKIP, while favouring all at once the big parties and the locally chauvinistic ones. Most blatant of all is naturally that the third biggest party in the country finds itself with a single seat for 12,6 % of the national vote; while a negligible pigmy like the Social Democratic and Labour Party (anybody know what they stand for or where they live?) rakes in three seats on the basis of 0,3 % of the ballot.

Say what you will and by all means do disagree with Alfred B. Mittington if so you desire; but you must admit that under the present system it clearly matters less what you vote, than where you vote! That is an unfairness which really ought to be addressed. But anybody who looks at the above figures for the dominant parties, will surely see at a glance why that will never happen…