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Well, it’s all over. No huge surprise in the actual result. A Labour majority of 66, exactly what the BBC forecast in their exit poll. Was that a first? It’ll certainly mean politicians next time will be less able to avoid theorising about the forthcoming result!

I stayed up to the glorious time of 5am (and am regretting it all the more now in hindsight). George Galloway’s appallingly bad-tempered acceptance speech and interview with Paxman was hardly a highlight of that last hour, but no doubt a sign of things to come: Whilst he’s certainly a firebrand, he’s opinionated and strong-minded which we could do with more of in parliament. Highlight of the night had to be Bremner, Bird and Fortune (spot-on as ever). I was curious that the BBC’s election results seemed to lag quite substantially behind ITV’s tally. Peter Snow was in fine form (loose the silly Downing street race graphics next time though), especially the “three way battlefield” graphic which did an excellent job of showing the movements between the parties.

It’s certainly not the ringing endorsement for Blair, but understandable given the Iraq war and the knee-jerk campaign fought by the Tories. The Tories certainly did well, especially at seeing off the Liberal Democrat challenge. That’s a shame because there are a lot of seats that would have been vulnerable, but given the Liberal Democrats are perceived (especially in the Tory heartlands) as being “left of labour”, it’s understandable the blue-rinse brigade didn’t switch over. Hopefully the Lib Dems will revisit some of their policies to make them a more viable alternative in such seats. They’re certainly well placed nationally now to grow further. They did particularly well in Scotland, moving back into 2nd place on the national popular vote at the expense of the SNP. Their decapitation campaign was more of a poke with a fork, only a few minor successes, but they have moved very well into some Labour heartland seats, so some promise for more seats at Labours expense in the future.

Turnout was actually up on last time, which is something to be hopeful about. I’d expected a record low turnout, but am glad to be wrong on that count. Certainly the election campaign, whilst very much stuck in a rut and dreary to listen to, seems to have got the electorate enthused to turn out in better numbers. That the Tories gained seats is a shame with their knee-jerk and unpleasant campaign, but hopefully better for a more effective voice to the opposition in the coming years. Another leadership struggle so soon after the election is laughable: I’d have thought they would do better to spend a year or more working out their strategy and direction before finding another embarrassing leader for the next election. Already the jockeying for position by a poor selection of leadership candidates makes me think that “effective opposition” will rightly move to the Liberal Democrats.

The biggest looser though still has to be the British people. We’ve succeeded in electing in a government that has the lowest share of the popular vote since the reform act of the 19th century. It means that fewer people, as a share of those who voted, wanted the government we have than at any other time since Britain became something resembling a modern democracy. More people did not want a Labour government than did. It’s a by-product of the first-past-the-post system we have, and it’s deeply unfair and results in huge majorities for parties that consequently does not represent the will of the people.

I would dearly like to see a better electoral system, at the very least one whereby voters are able to rank their preferences. More often than not, I know who I do not want to win, but I’m forced to make decisions about who I should vote for with that in mind. If I vote “carelessly”, I get a much worse result than I’d like - such as a vote for Labour would be in my home town constituency of Wells. Note that almost 30,000 people did not want Heathcoat-Amory - only 23,000 people did. Yet he’s elected. How can that be right?

I still think that constituency based representative democracy is better than proportional, party-list based systems where party sycophants are placed higher. But the sad reality is that, now Blair is returned for a historic third term, the last thing that will be on his agenda is electoral reform. After all, winner-takes-all in our system, and it’s in his political interests to ensure the status quo continues. But all the talk of “engaging with the electorate” and “listening to their views” has an hollow ring to it if they are not prepared to give the electorate a representative voting system that enables their true opinions to be heard.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 6th, 2005 at 4:11 pm and is filed under British General Election, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.