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Election already over across most of Britain

Depressing research dampens election fever.

As Mehdi said earlier, the choppers are out in force, and though nothing much has happened today apart from Party Leaders Leave London, election "fever" has gripped the UK -- or Westminster, at least.

Now into the mix comes depressing research from the Electoral Reform Society, showing that across most of the country, and in roughly 400 seats, the election has already been decided thanks to our first-past-the-post system, in which about a million people in marginals decide for the rest of us.

Here's Dr Ken Ritchie, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society:

A hearty congratulations to all our new MPs for a hard-fought campaign. Having won the backing of their party members, they can now pack their bags for Westminster.

What a shame that conservative Gordon Brown, who is said to be pledging proportional representation for the Lords, did not produce the "game changer" of a promise of PR for the Commons. That really would have electrified this campaign.

Tags: Election 2010

3 comments

ROBERT TAGGART's picture

Twas ever thus !
Hoping for anyone but Liebour.
For the record, our seat - Cheadle - be a LibDem / Tory marginal, LibDems hold.
Moi ? voting for a 'minor' party... UKIP probably... sorry !
Oh !... Buckingham... England expects... you to vote UKIP... please !

David Bouvier's picture

A totally disingenous piece of research.

Under any party list system, something like the top 150 Labour, top 150 Conservative and top 75 LibDem MPs would also be able to predict with comfort that they would be on their way. The difference being even there is no possibility of an individual being targeted for ejection however corrupt or hated.

I would be difficult to create a system with much less than 50% of peolpe likely to be confident of the outcome, and if you managed to create one, it would have a dire effect on the quality and experience of the MPs we had.

What exactly are the ERS actually trying to say - this is ill-thought out emotive tosh.

Terry Tubbs's picture

Let's face it, if Brown had introduces PR, Cameron would have had this election in the bag already!

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