Elections

[drplokta]

Just over 50 years ago, there was an election, the first one that I was around for (if not eligible to vote). One party other than Conservative or Labour won 9 seats, 1.4% of the total (and that includes Northern Ireland). It was thus almost certain that either Labour or the Conservatives would win a majority. It was pretty much the zenith of the two-party system.

In May, we'll have an election. The current forecast is that nine parties other than Conservative or Labour will win a total of 86 seats, 13.2% of the total. It will thus be very difficult for either the Conservatives or Labour to win a majority. We are in for interesting times, politically speaking.

Comments

[vicarage.livejournal.com]

Interesting and good presentation, I think I'll be coming back to that. With the low UKIP numbers the Tory fear must be losing seats to Labour with a split vote and not being able to start coalition discussions, rather than having to negotiate with UKIP afterwards.

I'd have expected the LD share to have gone down more. Perhaps they will still be deal makers, but siding more naturally with Labour. I still hope Nick Clegg loses his seat though.

[coth.livejournal.com]

Not just because of the numbers. The exact distribution will matter a lot too, with the results in Scotland having a major impact on who can do what in the whole UK. Interesting times indeed.

[hano.livejournal.com]

I still think the most likely scenario is a Lab/SNP/Lib Dem agreement of some kind. Possibly a formal coalition albeit a fragile one. I so so hope that Clegg loses his seat

[del-c.livejournal.com]

They used to say First Past The Post made this sort of thing impossible, with FPTP supporters saying that was a good thing, and proportional representation supporters saying we needed PR to have more than two parties.