Does Tony Blair even have a mandate? Given the figures put forth in this article, I would have to say that the answer is “No.”

Labour received only 36.6 per cent of the vote, and with the turnout at just over 60 per cent, this meant barely 22 per cent of eligible voters cast a Labour ballot.

"This shows our voting system is bust," society spokesman Ken Ritchie said.
"It's quite absurd that a party with little more than a third of the votes should receive around 55 per cent of the seats and therefore be able to out-vote parties representing nearly two voters out of three."

Never has the case for electoral reform in Britain been so strong. The electoral boundaries are distorted, with the smallest constituency, Scotland's Western Isles, having only 21,900 registered voters while the largest, the Isle of Wight, has 106,300.

The Liberal Democrats were the worst-hit by the flawed voting system, which gave them only about 60 seats, despite the party achieving 22.4 per cent of the vote. The Tories, with 32.9 per cent, got three times as many seats, and six times as many went to Labour with 36.6 per cent.

So it isn’t just the drastic reduction in Labour seats that we need to be looking at – it is also the small percentage of the vote won by Labour and the disproportionate representation that brought the party. The question then remains – will Blair be able to maintain support within his own party for the length of the current term, or will he be replaced as PM? And if the Labour Party should be unable (due to local elections or defections) to maintain a majority, will the US find a Conservative Party nearly as in sync with the GOP as it did during the halcyon days of the 1980s when Lady Thatcher ruled the roost?

Posted by: Greg at 01:13 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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