Pleased as I am about the outcome of the recent UK general election, I’m still not happy about how it was secured, and – in particular – about the way it has given such a massive majority to Labour on the basis of only a third of the votes. I alluded to this in my previous post; and I expressed my discomfort over our ‘First Past the Post’ electoral system – a common complaint – in a much earlier blog: https://bernardjporter.com/2016/02/29/first-past-the-post/. But in that piece I also suggested a couple of ways in which we could reconcile the personal MP-constituency connexion, which we rightly value so much, with a more ‘proportional’ system, which should meet all the objections that First-Past-the-Posters have to PR. In the eight years since then I’ve not noticed anyone taking my ideas up. But then this blog is very obscure.

The article that ‘Phil’ sent me in response to yesterday’s post is worth everyone’s reading: https://gapingsilence.wordpress.com/2024/09/03/understanding-the-2024-election-7/. (Thank you so much, Phil.) It shows how Labour played the FPTP game more cleverly than the Tories, which was unusual; but also how this means that their victory wasn’t really a ‘Labour’ one, and so is not something that the new government should rely on to get their reforms accepted by the public, as Attlee’s were. Of course more of the 66% might be brought around to them eventually; but with the dreadful tabloids, masquerading as the ‘public’, still baying at Starmer’s heels, it won’t be easy.