How can we say we have democracy when ....

[AngryVoterBird]

...if number of MPs corresponded to % of votes the electorate cast we'd have a Labour/Lib Dem majority of 246 MPs with 235 Tory. We'd have 25 Green MPs, not 1. SNP would have 32 MPs (not 56) - fewer than Lib Dems who would have 51 MPs . Open to correction as my own sums. Party politics aside, how can we call this democratic? Thought we are supposed to have every person has one equal vote as the starting point for democracy?

I agree. 2/3rds of voters voted against having a conservative government. No wonder so many can't be arsed to vote.

Why have you joined labour and lib dem?
How many ukip would we have?

You've missed out UKIP.

Vote share of biggest parties is:

CON 36.9
LAB 30.5
UKIP 12.6
LD 7.8
SNP 4.7
GRN 3.8

(Source BBC, St Ives yet to declare)

Apparently ukip got 13% of the vote so based on 650 seats they should have got 84 seats.

UKIP would have 81 MPs. Whatever you think of their politics - that is what people have actually voted for. Them having 1MP is not democratic. I joined Labour and Lib Dem in my OP as in coalition they would be majority (as Tories and Lib Dem did last time). I suppose I'm surprised this issue doesn't get much attention when it seems so wrong to me.

Well, last time 2010, the Tories got 36.1% (306 seats, needed coalition) but in 2005, Labour got 35.2% (355 seats, big majority).

They need to get a wriggle on with boundary change.

The thought of UKIP having 80 odd MPs is enough to persuade me if the merits of first past the post....

Anyway, this has garnered lots of attention in the and we even had a referendum in 2011 on whether to adopt a different approach. The outcome - with a low turn out - was a resounding No

Don't understand this but I thought you only had a coalition if there was no overall majority for 1 party.

in the past, that should have been

Ditto boundary changes: the Boundary Commission proposed lots of tweaks that people didn't like (eg splitting the Isle of Wight in two) so many of them weren't implemented

There is an overall majority of seats for conservative?

pudcat in order to get legislation through Parliament and govern effectively you need not only to be the biggest party but have an overall majority in the Commons, either as a single party, a formal agreement to govern with one or more other parties in coalition, or as a minority government with an agreement for support for certain policies

Completely agree AVB - FPTP seems to make such a mockery of our supposed democracy.

There is an overall majority of seats for conservative?

Yes, but more than 50% of the electorate voted against them, yet they still won over 50% of the seats.

Even the horrific prospect of UKIP gaining lots of seats doesn't shake my belief that first past the post is an unfair system.

Txs closer got it now. Proportional representation would not have given them an overall majority.

Many people indulged in tactical voting - I am quite sure that if everybody knew that their vote contoured, many would have voted differently.

But yes, the UKIP vote is horrific

Well uk had a chance in 2011 and voted against proportional repreaentation- so the people don't want it. So you're stuck with first past the post for the foreseeable future. I think it'll be at least ten years if not longer for a non tory led govt.

Yes, but more than 50% of the electorate voted against them, yet they still won over 50% of the seats.
Just like happened in 1997, 2001, 2005...
In fact, I'm pretty sure that hasn't been an election in living memory where the winning party got over 50% of the vote, let alone support from 50% of the country

Under the example you give above if labour and lib dems together would have 246, and 51 of those would have been lib dems this would have given labour 195.
Cons would still have had the more votes, and Nick always said he would go first to the party with the most votes to see if they could make a working government.
Who knows what would have happened next.

There will not be a change in the voting system for many years if ever as it suits the main 2 controlling parties.

Completely agree OP. Voting reform has been needed for a long time - time to look very carefully at it imo. An absolutely bonkers set of results right across the political spectrum.

So the conservative party would still win. You can't lump two parties together and say they have a majority. It would still be a conservative majority right?

It's strange how people suddenly see the merits of some form of PR once the parties they prefer are vastly underrepresented rather than over-represented. I wonder whether Douglas Carswell supported PR in all the years he was a Tory MP.

Anyone who's ever been a Liberal has known this for a long time. I can remember feeling the injustice in 1983 when the Con/Lab/Lib-SDP alliance results were:
Seats won 397 209 23
Percentage 42.4% 27.6% 25.4%

• just a couple of percentage points difference between Lab and the alliance but nearly an order of magnitude difference in the number of seats. Obviously it's even more extreme now with more smaller parties spread thin.

But who will see voting reform as a priority now? Four years after a referendum on voting reform, with two large parties (SNP and Tories) who have benefitted from the current system ?