‘Seats to Vote Share (SVS)’ projections suggest democratic car crash is on cards

So let’s get this absolutely straight. If, as seems entirely plausible based on the latest polls, the Lib Dems win more votes than Labour in the upcoming Election, this is likely to translate into around one third as many seats.

Much as we in the UK have learned to live with the absurdities of the ‘first-past-the-post’ electoral system, the above scenario is still truly shocking...at least it is to me. It makes a mockery of Britain’s self-image as the 'Mother Of Democracy'. In fact it would not be too much of a stretch to argue that such a outcome would mean than the composition of the next parliament would have more in common with the pre-1832 Reform Act era of rotten and pocket boroughs than with a proud 21st Century democracy.

The reason why the failings of the FPP system are, over the course of the next three weeks, going to be laid bare as never before is, of course, the spectacular emergence of the Lib Dems as a truly credible political force. In today’s Observer, the results of last Friday’s YouGov poll were dissected and projected into electoral seats with the following results:

Conservative: 33% (and projected to win 246 seats)
Labour: 28% (and projected to win 276 seats)
Lib Dems: 30% (and projected to win 99 seats)

The very real prospect of Labour remaining the largest party after the Election, having been actively rejected by more than 70% of voters (and, based on 2005 total turnout figures, actively supported by less than 20% of the total UK electorate) is surely an appalling one for any lover of democracy.

The extent of the bias of the current system in favour of Labour, and to a lesser extent the Conservatives, is shown even more starkly if we translate the above figures into a ‘Seats to Vote Share’ (SVS) calculation (using 100 as a base number – i.e. representing a ‘neutral’ / completely fair – seats per vote share outcome)*:

Conservative: 33% of votes would translate into 37.8% of total seats = SVS factor of 115% (ie. 15% more than ‘fair’ share)
Labour: 28% of votes > 42.4% of seats = SVS of 151%
Lib Dem: 30% of votes > 15.2% of seats = SVS of 51%
*Above figures are based on the YouGov poll on 16 April.

Surely even the most rabidly-blue Tory or the reddest of Labourite would, in their heart of hearts, find it impossible to find anything remotely democratic in the above scenario with Labour standing to win more than 50% more seats than justified in terms of votes and the Lib Dems scraping barely half the seats merited by their popular support.

There has been much well-mannered campaigning on the subject of Proportional Representation over the years. However I now hope, and predict, that the democratic car crash that is about to unfold will provide the shock to the system (literally) that's been needed for so long. This coming election will make an unanswerable case for a move to Proportional Representation and I confidently predict that the momentum toward its introduction will then prove unstoppable.