{"id":21849,"date":"2017-08-28T07:47:36","date_gmt":"2017-08-28T06:47:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=21849"},"modified":"2017-08-28T07:47:36","modified_gmt":"2017-08-28T06:47:36","slug":"does-britain-need-a-new-electoral-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=21849","title":{"rendered":"Does Britain need a new electoral system?"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote><p>&#8220;On 26th June 2017, a full 17 days after the results of the general election were declared, a deal was finally agreed between the minority Conservative government and the Democratic Unionist Party to enable the government, on a case by case basis, to get its legislation through parliament.<\/p>\n<p>The results of the 2017 general election, which saw the Conservatives reduced to 318 seats despite a 5.5 percent increase in their vote share, were realised under a system designed to deliver stable, single-party governments.<\/p>\n<p>On 42.4 percent, the Conservatives had not only increased their vote share (up from 36.9 percent in 2015), they had achieved the same vote share as in 1983 \u2013 a year which saw a landslide 397 Conservative MPs elected.<\/p>\n<p>And yet, the Prime Minister returned to parliament having lost her majority whilst the Labour opposition drafted an alternative Queen\u2019s Speech. First Past the Post had delivered the country neither a decisive outcome nor a stable government.<\/p>\n<p>The volatility of this supposedly \u2018strong and stable\u2019 electoral system has been exposed in the last three general elections. In 2010 First Past the Post delivered us a coalition government, the first since 1945, under a system designed to produce single-party majorities. In 2015, First Past the Post gave us the most disproportionate election to date with a majority government secured by under 37 percent of the vote share.<\/p>\n<p>Now, in 2017, despite over 80 percent of votes going to just two parties (the highest combined vote share since 1970), First Past the Post could not deliver a majority government. The 2017 general election was the third strike for First Past the Post \u2013 it\u2019s out.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This is the opening of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.electoral-reform.org.uk\/latest-news-and-research\/publications\/the-2017-general-election-report\/?utm_campaign=8601975_Labour%20Group%20Bulletin%2011&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_source=London%20Councils&amp;dm_i=192K,54DBR,7306YU,JN6MJ,1\">a study by the Electoral Reform Society<\/a> of the 2017 General Election which offers projections for the result under three different electoral systems. It is a compelling case for change &#8211; but is anyone listening and how do we effect that change?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;On 26th June 2017, a full 17 days after the results of the general election were declared, a deal was finally agreed between the minority Conservative government and the Democratic Unionist Party to enable the government, on a case by case basis, to get its legislation through parliament. The results of the 2017 general election, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-current-affairs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21849","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21849"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21872,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21849\/revisions\/21872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}