It is nice to see how many people come round to the idea of a better voting system once the old one delivers a massive result they do not like.
One of the preconditions of the Conservative Liberal coalition in 2010 was a referendum on a better voting system. We got it and one David Cameron led the campaign not to change. First Past The Post (FPTP), he argued, gave strong government. I think he forgot we were in a coalition at the time but he won anyway.
Nowadays it seems like the people have become savvy and vote tactically. Since it is not currently possible to express a preference in a Single Transferable Vote (STV) system the voters tend to vote for whoever will defeat their least favourite option. So last night the Conservatives were trounced. Labour gained because they were usually best-placed to beat them.
In my own constituency of Redditch Labour won by 600 because Reform took 8000 and many Greens and Libs voted tactically (I guess).
I imagine Greens and Lib Dems, if allowed, would transfer their votes to each other and then Labour. Would the Conservatives have taken most of the Reform second picks? Probably not all of them. Enough? We don’t know. Say the Reform votes split 75/25 to the Tories. New result under STV becomes:
Conservative 20,408
Labour 21,202
I haven’t reallocated the 765 votes won by the Workers’ Party of Britain but basically Redditch is close under all systems.
Quick rough calculation on back of envelope. Proportional representation would give a national result of:
Labour 250
Conservative 175
Reform 100
Lib Dem 75
Green 50
A Labour/Lib Dem/Green coalition would be the likely government with a majority of 50-100 (remember there are independents and nationalist parties too).
These have been my election musings. Today I am happy and hopeful. Thanks for reading
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