A recent study shows that the most disproportionate result in UK history cheated millions of voters out of representationBefore we start to forget what happened at the election,we ought to reflect on the most gobsmacking aspect of the result. I enact not mean that the Tories won. I mean how they won. Some have attributed their shock majority to the dark arts of Lynton Crosby. Others to the lack of appeal of Ed Miliband. Some opine that the Tory win demonstrates that the English are an essentially conservative people. Others consider Labour’s failure is a symptom of a worldwide crisis in social democracy. On they go, the theories. I have barely touched on the many interesting explanations for what happened. And they are all unsuitable. For certain, or they may be among the factors that contributed to what happened on 7 May,but they are all insignificant compared with the main explanation for why David Cameron is at Number 10 enthroned atop a Conservative parliamentary majority.
There is a big, basic and brute reason why we have just heard a Tory Queens speech, or will soon be listening to a Tory budget and have five years or so of Tory law-making ahead of us. It is so bloody obvious that no one is talking approximately it – it is the electoral system.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com