This map comes from a tweet by someone called Jo Wood, posted on Twitter yesterday. It shows the UK electoral result, and who came second in each seat:
Why is it relevant? Because it shows who missed out in our first-past-the-post system.
The Tories should have more seats than they got.
And look at the SNP performance - which shatters the idea that they are off the agenda.
And yes, the Reform list is long, but there are also really big patches of Green - often in cities.
Unsurprisingly, the LibDems and Labour have little to gain: FPTP suited them well this time.
This issue is not going away, I suggest. We have a two-party electoral system where one of those two parties has failed and the country supports many parties. FPTP's party is over, I suggest.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
I don’t believe Richard Tice when he says the party had little money.
I suspect ‘dark money’ possibly American as well, is involved.
And when do we think Kier Starmer will launch an inquiry into Russian dark money supporting the Leave side in the Brexit referendum?
who knows if at all.
Well they will have a bit of “Short money “ coming now they have 5 MPs.
In contrast to the effect on SNP funding, where the loss of seats will cause a dramatic loss of income. I’ve seen a figure quoted of a drop from £1.3m to about £350k.
In a lot of the constituencies where Green came second to Labour, the Greens either control or are the official opposition on local councils.
I would suggest that there were a lot of Green supporters who thought that Green was a wasted vote, or might let the Tories in, will be voting Green in national elections in future.
Mr Hurley, I agree with this observation & suggest that the “who came second” map may be indicative of what might happen in the future if (when?) LINO fail to deliver & the Uk stays +/- as it is. As Richard observed the SNP is by no means a spent force (ain’t gone away) ditto the Tories, Reform seems to be on the rise (albeit with no poilicies to speak of) and the Greens offer the possbility of change. By contrast, the Lib-Dems seem to have hit a high-water mark.
I see Reform as very much a protest vote party. I don’t think their representation in parliament is sustainable without having local representation in councils etc. to build on. This, in turn, requires having active local parties. Without reforming itself, Reform will be unable to do this.
The Greens, in contrast, have a strategy of building up local representation, both so that voters get used to voting Green and so that they see the benefits of Green policies being enacted. This is then a springboard for targeting seats at Westminster. The strategy is slower but more sustainable than going for protest votes.
I wonder how many people were denied a vote due to failure to receive their postal vote. I found 4 people I know today in that position. Who knows what if any impact all the “lost” votes would have made. No-one seems to be discussing it but I think it should be important to at least try and find out how many people were in this position.
Postal votes were a mess in this election. Something clearly needs to be done to make sure they are handled better next time.
That’ll be Jo Wood, Prof of visual analytics at City University. He has done some really nice work visualising large data. First came across his work in a cycling context.
Thanks
Given FPTP is unlikely to happen under LINO, an alternative to no electoral reform could be primaries – which would undermine the current system.
Albeit a different electoral system, France points the way – the right got a proper stuffing (an electoral technical term) and Melenchon plus the Greens came out on top. No reason why it could not happen via primaries. Might let more Reform in – but also the Greens & possibly more Lib-Dems plus others.
One observation: people like govs that seem to know what they are doing – chaos results in ejection. Coalitions tend to be more volatile than one-party stuff – it is almost as if people are conditioned in the classroom to like a firm but fair hand. Germany provides a useful example. But set against that – NL and BE provide counter examples, with BE being cited unfairly for being without a gov for more than a year (and? – life went on).
I can see the advantages of primaries, however if they require people to register as a member of a party, they can be quite divisive, as in the US. In general I prefer voting systems that weaken rather than strengthen the party system.
As to liking a fair but firm hand, a surprisingly large number of people don’t like taking responsibility for their own actions. 30 years ago I used to teach evening classes in programming in C and Java. Almost always there was someone who spent the time playing computer games and thought it was part of my job to stop them. My attitude was that as adults they should take responsibility for their own actions and, provided they were not disrupting the class, I left them to get on with it.
A further twist to ‘who came second’ in Scotland has been highlighted by Wings Over Scotland.
I admit I really do not like his tone and so have removed the link