A Return to Normality? How the Electoral System Operated

At first glance, the 2015 General Election heralded a return to normality. According to its advocates, the single-member plurality electoral system enables the electorate to choose directly between alternative governments by ensuring that whichever party comes first in votes secures an overall majority in seats, even though it may have won much less than half the vote. For most of the post-war period that is precisely how it has operated. Now, after a hiatus in 2010, when no one party won an overall majority and the partisan colour of the government was determined by post-election coalition negotiations, one party, the Conservatives, was returned with an overall majority despite winning just 37% of the UK-wide vote. Indeed, the party secured a majority even though, at 6.6 percentage points, its lead in votes over the Labour Party (in Great Britain) was 0.6 of a point less than it had been five years previously. The system can apparently be relied upon after all to reward the winning party with enough of a ‘bonus’ in seats to ensure that it wins an overall Commons majority. However, a closer look at the result suggests in many respects the electoral system did not deliver what its advocates often claim as its merits. For a start, although the Conservatives won an overall majority, it was by historical standards a small one— just 12 seats—and certainly not one that can be guaranteed to withstand the potentially chilly winds of by-election losses and defections to which all governments tend to be subject. The party’s majority is small even though the 6.6-point lead enjoyed by the Conservatives is larger than that secured by Tony Blair in 2005 and Edward