Fair Votes

In most recent General Elections Labour has gained proportionately more seats than their vote share suggested. In 1997 to have the same seat outcome as Labour, the Conservatives would have had to obtain 6.7% more votes nationally, in 2001 the Conservatives would have needed 8.3% more, while in 2005 they would have required 6.4% more votes.

To put it another way, in 2005 if the two parties had enjoyed the same number of votes, Labour would have gained 111 more seats than the Conservatives. The reason is not difficult to explain. In general it is because Labour held constituencies have a smaller number of electors than Conservative ones. It reflects the fact that the Conservative power is largely in England, where the average constituency has 70,000, while in Wales constituencies have 56,000 and in Scotland 65,000.

This arises because there has been a reduction in population in inner city areas and industrial areas.In 1945 the membership of the "Commons" was raised from 615 to 640, and it was also decided that a revision of constituency boundaries should take place during every parliament.
The first routine change took place in 1955, and 270 constituencies had their boundaries altered.
The result was anger among MPs and in 1958 the new Boundary Commission was tasked with a redistribution of constituencies every 15 years.

Redistribution can cause an upset and cut across loyalties and friendships, admittedly, but fairness demands that the bias be reduced by more frequent adjustments. With computers it should be possible to undertake the exercise every parliament, basing changes on recent population and building changes.

A radical alternative advocated by some is the adoption of a system of Proportional Representation of some sort, then seat numbers would relate to votes cast, whatever the distribution of population. (Though would we want to continue with the constituency sizes which means that English MPs have to "look after" 20% more electors than their Welsh counterparts?)

The LibDems are advocates of P.R. , but then they have most to gain from it. As the small party of three, they would be almost permanently in Government, and requiring some of their policies to be adopted (i.e policies voted for by a small proportion of the population) each time they entered a coalition Government. PR would produce no overall majority often, to judge from the countries where it is used.

A second objection to PR is that consistent Government can become unstable, with shifting coalitions, as the two larger parties seek to entice the third party, or fourth, or..., into coalition.We could have regular "chops and changes"with some policy changes before they have even had a chance to work out - a kind of perpetual musical chairs.

Thirdly, P.R. tends to weaken the link between MP and constituency, if there is any link at all, as when a list system is used to adjust for variations in local voting. Transferable vote systems, may have local MPs, but they have to be large enough multiple member constituencies, to make sure that every party having a threshold vote has an elected candidate. Any why should 5% qualify, but not 4%, to have an MP.

For all it's disadvantages, it seems better to persevere with the "First Past the Post" system, but make it fairer by having greater equality in constituency size, by regular revision.