Political Change In The UK.

Post Reply New Topic

If we examine the statistics, though Labour won on seats by a large majority, they only won by a small margin when it came to the numbers of votes, as the voters voting for Labour were actually said to be similar to the Labour voting number when they lost their last election, which goes to show how fast politics in the UK is changing.



Labour........................Seats 412. Voters 9,686,329.

Conservatives............Seats 121. Voters 6,814,650.

Reform........................Seats 005. Voters 4,102,109.

Liberal Democrats......Seats 071. Voters 3,499,969.



(I have not included the other parties as I just included the main four as a reference to show the change).

It actually is astonishing how much things have changed!

[I have updated the results as have just heard that Reform has won a 5th seat but not seen the numbers of voters update for any of the parties so I will leave those figures as they are. Think one seat was late in the counting? Going to watch to see what has happened].

Reform an extra 12,178,
Labour an extra 12,080 (It was close!),
Conservstives an extra 10,159,
Liberal Democrats an extra 1,071.

I have not added these to the figures above, but I have changed the seats to 5 for Reform.
I think the figures they origionally displayed above were just before the last votes were in as the counts were delayed in the London area due to the large volumes of voting slips to be counted.

I have just heard some more news and a puzzling statistic. The Reform party has got its sixth elected candidate.

Now here is a statistic that I find mathematically puzzling.

Labour by far won the majority of seats across the country though other parties were very close in most of the areas they won, as we are talking about down to the last few votes.
But what is strange thing is that 80% of the voters did not vote for the elected party (Labour). So we have had Labour with a clear majority voted in with less votes than any party has ever got in in the past, but having a clear lead in the number of seats gained. Is this even mathematically possible?

this happens in every democratic election in the world. A party might win a landslide (like Labour) but only hold 30-40% of the vote. And in Labour's case this also doesn't include the 30% of the voting population who abstained.

If it is a concern, I would look at how seats are structured across the UK electorates. It was my previous impression the tories would win because of gerrymandering and bias against working class areas.

Just over 50% (51%) of people voted this election since they cut out a percentage of the population from having the eligability to vote since they introduced the voter I.D. My friend said he knew three people (Two older generation and one middle age) who can no longer vote as they do not have an accepted form of I.D. They can prove 100% who they are by their birth certificates and their household bills, but this is now not classed as an acceptable form of I.D., so voting this time is around an estimated 5-15% down as there is normally a 65% turnout average at elections. This is the first proper meaningful election that voter I.D. is enforced.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have lost significent voting numbers due to this as the older generation were more effected and the majority of that generation tended to automatically vote for one of the two traditional parties.

If one takes the whole numbers of eligable voters who could potentially vote, then Labour won by less than 10% of the voters, though they did win by 20% of the 51% of voters who turned up to vote if that makes sense which is why it was such a miracle they managed to get so many seats as it was said that right across the four countries that make up the UK, the voting was so close that they were counting right down to the last few votes which doesn't often happen as close like that round such a large number of elected positions.

I saw 71% voter turn out? Do you have a link to demonstrate Labour's slim margin for governing the country?

I can find a few as been looking at analytical posts on youtube. Actually looking at one now by an American who is in one of the English areas (He said he was in England) where it went from Conservative to Labour overnight.

If it was a 71% turnout and I missread, then Labour actually still won by a whisker. I was watching the TV right into the early hours on the electionwho said there had been a 51% turnout as they were commenting how low it had been.
In my area, we didn't get to vote until 1530 hours though they had to stay open until midnight, but the majority of voters tend to vote in the morning to mid day. As we were the only ones there at the time my Mum asked how many had turned up to vote and they said "About a hundred". So I asked "How many voters living in the area, and she said "Around 400". Going by when poling stations usually attract the most people and times I would say they would be lucky if they got 150 out of the 400 turn up to vote. It is an area that has an unusually large proportion of its population who are elderly, as many people move here to retire due to the lovely coastal scenery and the reasonable property values. The largest employer in the area are the hotels, guest houses and camp sites though it is seasonal work and they are mostly family owned and run. The population of the main town swells massively in the holiday season where people flood in to enjoy their holidays and I can't blame them. Beaches, castles, railways set in wonderful scenery. What more is there to like!

I am currently watching this if my tablet lets me!

I hope this can embolden the Dems here.

The voting system is the voting system no matter who wins

It's only not fair if you're on the losing team

The Lib Dems have just done very nicely under FPTP but continue to campaign for Proportional Representation.

https://www.libdems.org.uk/fairvotes

Am i misremembering? When Blair and Brown were PM I remember them being on the left side of the house from the speakers perspective - i e. the same side Labour sit in opposition.

But Starmer today was speaking from the right side, where the Tories usually sit.

Is that normal? Is my memory just wrong?

You're misremembering, the government sits on the right of the speaker and the opposition on the left.

^Thanks. Memory playing tricks again.

While I think it's an unfair solution to a problem of voter fraud that barely exists (IIRC fewer than 10 cases with a couple of prosecutions over years), it's easy to apply for a "Voter Authority Certificate" - https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-v ... ertificate

The problem with first-past-the-post is that the runners-up get nothing even when they got a lot of votes.

I like the idea of proportional representation except when I think of how much better Reform UK would have done if we'd had that. But conversely, Corbyn's Labour Party did better than Starmer's in the popular vote, so there wouldn't be this misconception around that the public is particularly afraid of socialism.