It seems that the election went well for the anything-but-Conservative party. It did rather shine a poor light on our first-past-the-post electoral system, though. At the time of writing, with about 5% of the seats yet to be declared, the BBC is reporting:
- Labour have 64% of the seats on 34% of the vote
- The Conservatives have 19% of the seats on 24% of the votes
- Reform UK has 1% of the seats on 14% of the votes
- The Liberal Democrats have 11% of the seats on 12% of the votes
- The Greens have 1% of the seats on 7% of the votes
- The rest have 6% of the seats on 9% of the vote
The disparity between Reform UK and the Lib Dems is particularly striking. I'm no fan of Reform UK, but if a party with a smaller share of the vote can get 71 seats compared their 4, that is manifestly unfair. They need 6 to qualify for campaign funds. The Greens won their 4 target seats and must now be wishing they'd targeted 6.
In the constituency where I live, the Conservative candidate managed to hang on. His majority was cut to 1,000, but the Labour candidate made no effort in our neck of the woods and the Conservative candidate threw everything the spending laws allowed at us. The big question, though, is did the minor parties lose their deposit?
Well, no they didn't. The Liberal Democrats got 7.4% of the vote and the Greens got 5.8%. I should probably have spent my deposit-saving vote on the Greens, looking at this, but I'm glad that all parties got 5% or more and retained their deposits.
Yesterday, I went out to the tempting castle in the bay that I could see from my hotel room. Here's what the same view I posted looks like from the other direction.
Ah, metaphors for changes in government....