First of all, i wish to comment on the bizarre practice of not allowing people to vote. This seems to somewhat invalidate the result to me, as clearly a lot of these people were present at the polling station before the closing time of 10 o'clock but due to the truly British past-time of being boorishly punctual, many of these people were refused their democratic right. In this country this is outrageous and should result in severe action against those with the most severe limitations of foresight and common sense to allow this to happen. However, to those that were turning up with minutes to spare; you did have a full 15 hours to vote. What the hell were you doing the rest of that time?
But now on to the results and; surprise, surprise it led to a hung parliament and surprise, surprise a number of parties got utterly shafted by this archaic voting system. Now, whilst I can't hide my delight at the news that the BNP not only failed to gain a parliamentary seat but also lost pretty much their entire council representation over the whole country in one fell swoop, we do find the entire spectrum of political parties other than "the big two" are pretty poorly represented despite a fairly good showing in actual votes. No surprise to learn, then, that today saw the first of what I assume could be many outright demonstrations seeking to encourage the abandonment of 'first-past-the-post politics.' Sadly, this could well come to nought.
You see, the one thing that a certain group of politicians took from this is that the Conservative party gained the highest number of seats and votes, and so are claiming themselves the victors by technical knockout. Depressing though this may be it currently leaves the nation waiting on the edge of their seat for news from Nick 'The Kingmaker' Clegg as to whether he is to accept David Cameron's offer of "cooperation" in the future government. No doubt Clegg's decision to allow Cameron to make the first deal will be to the dismay of many of his supporters, but I, for one, am personally impressed with the man's integrity to stand by his key principles in allowing the most supported party the first crack at playing Happy Cabinets. I do, however, join the long list of people who are skeptical that such a coalition will take place this side of Hell freezing over. Mainly because Cameron will never even let the thought of electoral reform being on the table even fleetingly dance across his mind but, also, because Clegg knows, like many of us do, that Cameron is a conniving, arrogant bastard who would sooner let a commoner touch his shoe than change the way elections work and damage his prospects for further holding on to power.
Because when the Conservative supporters complain about electoral reform reducing the likelihood that any party gain an overall majority they actually mean that PR will prevent the Tories from doing what they want. And the Tories don't do compromise well. Another reason why a coalition won't happen. But the fact is, the current system is a cheat. OK, it might mean that a party can pass rules without fear of any opposition, but considering that no party has ever achieved over 50% of the vote since the end of the war (and possibly further back, but there's only so much research I'm willing to do) then surely, statistically, the majority of people may not actually have wanted to put that party in that position in the first place. In fact it can't be too unreasonable to say that, in truth, more people didn't want that party in that position. And yet there they are, changing the rules as they wish without really conferring with anyone else. If you ask me, that sounds less like democracy and more like a dictatorship hidden under the guise of a democracy. Clever eh? And strangely, the only party to straight out refuse a change is the Conservative Party. If that doesn't reflect their core beliefs I don't know what does.
But, some numbers. The Tories are claiming they have the support of the biggest chunk of the country. Sadly, they are wrong. Voter turnout was about 30 million, roughly two-thirds of the voting population if BBC stats are accurate, and I hope they are. So there were about 15 million people who did not vote. Most, presumably, by choice. As for the Tories, they received about 10 and a half million votes. Therefore, the highest supported political idea was not Conservatism but Apathy. Roughly a third of the population decided that there was no point making that short walk to the polling station. Clearly, something is wrong with the system, otherwise everyone would be voting. Clearly something needs to change. And yet the Conservatives, with all their harping on about change, have fallen at the first hurdle by refusing to offer any real positive steps on making this change in this clearly poorly supported electoral system.
The next few weeks and months could be a struggle. We can presume that the Lib Dems will not get offered anywhere near enough to make siding with the Tories worthwhile. Whilst at the same time we can possibly assume that Clegg will most likely feel uncomfortable working with someone so unpopular as Brown, so it is difficult to see where we go from here. The possibility of a Lib/Lab pact is somewhat promising if still not a secure enough government. Similarly, if the Tories are sincere about giving the Lib Dems genuine influence then we may be seeing the start of some actual progress in democracy, but without the electoral reform to back up this sudden willingness of the Tories to share power it is unlikely to go anywhere. A little like this blog in a way, because there is no real conclusion, other than to counter the Conservative arguments that the people have spoken in there favour, because the reality is over three quarters of the public chose to not vote Conservative, and nearly two thirds of voters voted against a Conservative government. And yet their opinion is likely to count for nothing in the full face of the Conservative run government which will be deciding their lives for the near future.
It would be nice if somebody important realised this. I could stop talking about it then.
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