After the predictable but sickening claims by Labour that they have a mandate following the 2024 election it is time to check out what happened previously. The sight of Crayons with a permanent smug look makes me somewhat queasy.
I graphed all the elections since 1959 in terms of vote count, seats won, votes per seat and my personal bugbear, the percentages. These percentages are beloved by all pollsters because they cover a million sins and the politicians are equally fond of them because they can be very misleading and open to many interpretations.
Unfortunately seeing as Reform have only really stood in one election they don’t figure on the graph and the SNP and Greenies have a limited history. I know Winifred Ewing of the SNP famously won a seat in a 1967 by-election, lost it in 1970 and won again in 1974 before finding a home as an MEP but the SNP never really did much in terms of seats until this century. Alex Salmond also had a seat in Westminster from 1987 to 2010 but these were lean times for the Scots Nazis.
One of the more astounding statistics is that in the 21st century the percentage of people who didn’t vote has been higher than any Party’s share of the vote. This is hardly a vote of confidence in our political system nor to my mind is it a mandate for Keith to implement the Gulags.
My first offering to you is the percentages but including those who didn’t vote. Not voting has been the most popular option this century and was not far behind Labour in 1997 when Labour got 30.8% while none of the above got 28.6%. It rather looks like Labour’s successes have been achieved when the Tory vote couldn’t be bothered to emerge from their apathy. This should come as no surprise to those who view Labour and Tory as two cheeks of the same backside. The political class avoid mentioning the non voters like the plague because it puts them in a rather bad light. Since 2001 the popular mandate has been for those who find all the parties somewhat lacking. Someone in Westminster should be highlighting this at every opportunity but of course they will all keep schtumm.
My second offering is the Total Electorate and the number of those who voted. Unsurprisingly the size of the electorate has grown by nearly 12 million since 1959 and maybe not much of a surprise, voting is falling out of favour with NikNak being especially in the frame for discouraging the people from visiting the urn.
Thirdly, if such a word exists, we have the percentages by party but also including the percentage who could be bothered to turn out. I couldn’t find all the data for the Scotch Nazis so they only figure from 2015 onwards. 1983 was rather telling, the Liberals got nearly as many votes as Labour (pace Michael Foot) but won far fewer seats. Was this when they realised what the game was and began to target seats ?
Now, instead of percentage we look at the number of votes cast. So much for Satan Blair’s famous victory in 1997, he got fewer votes than John Major in 1992 or the Fat Turk in 2019. Keith’s much acclaimed mandate in 2024 came as a result of the lowest number of votes for a government since 1959 and probably long before that. NikNak’s disastrous reign over us can best be illustrated by saying that in 1983, 1987 and 2010 the LibDems got more votes than the sinking ship of 2024 called the Tory Party. I am convinced the deluded fools at CCHQ still don’t realise how low they have sunk. The Labour Party are not much different. Their number of votes in 2024 was only better than 1983, 2005, 2010 and 2015. When you take into account that they have recovered much ground in Scotland this 2024 result is not really very inspiring at all.
Finally we can see the number of votes required to win a seat. Reform not appearing in the graph hides their 823,000 or so votes per seat statistic but even this is not as bad as the Liberal’s performance in the first 1974 election where each seat required over 1,000,000 votes.
The first past the post system is very unfair to smaller parties but I would be loathe to recommend changing it to proportional representation. Every government since 1959 would have contained the Liberals/LibDems in a coalition. For those people in favour of widening the circle of their friends this would have been ideal but I and many others remain unconvinced. I really believe that many of the votes for our third party are not for them but against the big two. They also have the most ridiculous selection of policies, certainly these days.
To give him his due, CallMeDave held a coalition together without too much apparent stress. It is certain that others groupings would have been less calm. As much as I dislike FPTP, PR is not the solution. In fact I think the party system itself is to blame for much of our ills. The three line whip system ensures the troughers stay in line and allows the PM, or perhaps Cabinet, to be a kind of dictator. One of the proofs of this is that once elevated to the House of Lords many former MPs suddenly start talking sense having spent a lifetime parroting their party’s claptrap while in the Commons.
Some form of direct democracy may be the solution. This will not find favour among the political class who would see their power diminish and no doubt the usual suspects would be howling about populism. In a democracy I cannot understand how populism (i.e. what the people want) can be considered wrong. You would have to be a BBC type Stalinist to think along those lines. Keith has been called a Trotskyist but he just has to be rather keen on Stalinist principles. The perpetual revolution of Trotsky only takes you so far.
Presenting this article as a history of recently failing Tory Prime Ministers was an alternative. The data shows that Labour’s forays into Downing Street have only happened when the Tory vote has collapsed, usually because a Prime Minister has failed to live up to expectations. 1997 was compounded in that Major’s Back to Basics message was lampooned and the rest of the party were ostentatiously on the make. That result could have been far worse if his dalliance with Eggwina had been made public in time for the election. The other alternative was failing leaders of the opposition, Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock would be the stars of that particular show closely followed by Ian Drunken Smith, Billy bum boy Hague and Michael Howard of Paxo interview fame.
© well_chuffed 2024
