UK General Election (1)

There are several points to be made on the undemocratic manner by which the UK is governed. It is a parliamentary democracy, and is one of the oldest democracies in the world, but it has a lot of quirks by which it is a long way from being trully democratic.

Size of Constituency

Isle of Wight - Population 100,000. Constituencies - 1
Western Isles - Population 20,000. Constituencies - 1

Not all areas have equal representation.

Size of Popular Vote

On the BBC website, they had a calculator which would work out the number of seats to be won by each party with a specific percentage of the popular vote. If the Lib Dems, Conservatives and Labour each received 30% of the vote (10% to Others), the seats would be allocated as follows:

Labour - 328 (overall majority of 10)
Conservative - 201
Lib Dems - 86
Others - 31

(see:Calculator).

With the same amount of the vote, the Lib Dems would get 13% of the seats, and Labour 51%. Is that fair?

Voting for candidates

Electors generally do not vote for candidates, they vote for parties, or more specifically party leaders (with the exception of the occasional seat where there is a specific local issue - Blaenau Gwent, Wyre Valley, George Galloway's seat). The proof of this was in Robin Cook's constituency, where Labour voters who had been against the war told him that they could back him, even though he had been completely against the war.

This makes the whole election a Presidential race.

Anonymity

Your voter number is compared to a list, and a number unique to you is then written on the ballot paper. This can then be traced back to you. While I am certain that this would not happen in the UK at the moment, it does open the door for unscrupulous people to find out voting habits should they have access to this information.

Party Activists outside Polling Stations

I wonder how many people realise that they do not have to give their names and numbers to the party activists sitting outside the Polling Stations. I resent them asking for/demanding my number and not stating very clearly that (a) they need this information for their own ends and (b) it is NOT part of the voting process. I now refuse to give the information, but its only recently that I relaised that I could do this. In a short time standing outside my Polling Station holding the dog, waiting for my wife to vote, no-one else from 30-40 people refused to give their information or question the activists. Admittedly they were wearing rosettes, but apart from this it was not clear that they were not pollling "officials".

More later.