FPTP also performs badly when distributing seats according to the parties' share of the votes nationwide. This is because a party with its votes concentrated in some geographic areas (such as Labour in Scotland in 1997, who prevented the Conservative winning a seat in this region) may win a higher share of the seats than is warranted by its share of the votes UK wide. In contrast, a party whose votes are more spread out geographically (such as the Liberal Democrats in years prior to 1997) may win a lot of votes nationwide without winning many seats. For example in the 1983 general election when the Liberal-Social Democrat Party Alliance won 25% of the votes but only 3% of the seats. In the same election Labour received slightly more votes, 27%, but gained just under 30% of the seats.

Under FPTP (and other systems where each party

The Commission’s central recommendation was that the best alternative for Britain to the existing FPTP system is a two-vote mixed system. The majority of MPs (80 to 85%) would continue to be elected on an individual constituency basis, with the remainder elected on a corrective Top-up basis which would significantly reduce the disproportionality and geographical divisiveness which are inherent in FPTP. For example, in Scotland where the Conservatives did not receive one seat despite getting well over 20% of the vote in that region. Under the proposed plans the Conservatives would have received seats from the top up system. Perhaps one disadvantage of this system is that it may lead to more ‘hung’ parliaments and therefore leading either to another general election or a coalition. One of the advantages of the FPTP system, in many peoples eyes, is that because the of the way parties wins are exaggerated in the form large majorities, this produces strong Government. A Government whose power is constantly under threat from the opposition will not be concentrating all it’s efforts on running the country, as happened with John Major’s Government.

only has one candidate in a constituency) local parties tend to

Some topics in this essay:
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