Features

#GE2015: electoral system awards parties more seats the fewer votes they get

Published

10 years ago

May 8, 2015

Simon Leadbetter

Broken First Past the Post means UKIP secures 3.8 million votes and gets one seat. The Lib Dems secure 2.4 million votes and get eight seats. The SNP secure 1.5 million votes and get 50 seats. Fewer votes means more seats.

We have a majority Conservative government with 51% of the seats, commanding 37% of the vote and only 24% of the electorate.

Time for electoral reform.

Photo: Martin Bamford via Flickr

Simon Leadbetter is the founder and publisher of Blue & Green Tomorrow. He has held senior roles at Northcliffe, The Daily Telegraph, Santander, Barclaycard, AXA, Prudential and Fidelity. In 2004, he founded a marketing agency that worked amongst others with The Guardian, Vodafone, E.On and Liverpool Victoria. He sold this agency in 2006 and as Chief Marketing Officer for two VC-backed start-ups launched the online platform Cleantech Intelligence (which underpinned the The Guardian’s Cleantech 100) and StrategyEye Cleantech. Most recently, he was Marketing Director of Emap, the UK’s largest B2B publisher, and the founder of Blue & Green Communications Limited.