Politics and the Electoral System

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Politics and the Electoral System

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The Story of an Election

• Labour Party leader Tony Blair transfers party
  leadership to Gordon Brown at a Labour Party
  conference in July 2007.
• Brown becomes Prime Minister (PM) without having
  stood for new election as the leader of his
  party.
• This is normal.
• Party leaders are selected within the political
  party itself.
• A party leader becomes PM because his party is
  the majority party in parliament.
• Labour has the majority in Parliament in 2007,
  and Gordon Brown becomes PM.
• Browns prime-minister-ship is formalized by the
  Queen

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The Story of an Election

• On April 6, 2010, Brown calls a new parliamentary
  election for May 6, 2010
• The campaign lasts only one month.

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The Story of an Election

• All Members of Parliament (MPs) stand for
  election only in their own constituencies
  (districts).
• David Cameron (leader of the Conservative Party)
  stands for election only in Whitney in
  Oxfordshire
• Gordon Brown (leader of the Labour Party) stands
  for election only in Kirkcaldy-Caldenbeath in
  Fife.
• Big-name politicianslike Cameron and Brownalso
  campaign in colleagues constituencies to boost
  their parties fortunes.
• Whichever party can form a majority in parliament
  will put forward the next prime minister.

David Cameron in Whitney
Gordon Brown in Kirkcaldy
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Effect of Electoral Institutions

• How does the electoral system work?
• Single-member-district electoral system
• First-past-the-post
• (also called winner-take-all)

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Effect of Electoral Institutions

• Hypothetical
• 34 Labour
• 33 Conservative
• 33 Liberal-Democrat
• ?Single-member/First-past-the-post
• ? Labour wins all parliamentary seats
• ? Parties w/ combined backing of 2/3s of
• electorate win no seats at all
• Multi-member/Proporational Representation
• Would be a three-party system w/ roughly equal
  representation

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British Popular Vote by Party, 1945-2010
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Look at declines in Labour (red line) popularity.
Why?
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Labour Party increasingly out of touch in 1970s
1980s

• Shift from manufacturing to services
• Fewer blue collar jobs
• Fewer union members identify with Old Labour
• Less union membership among white collar
  workers lower
• Hurt Old Labour

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Effect of Electoral Institutions on Political
Outcomes

• If Labour was so out-of-touch for 2 decades, why
  wasnt it replaced by a third party?
• Not for lack of trying by 3rd Parties
• Social Democratic Party (1981)
• Liberal Democrats (since 1988)
• But remember disproportionality
• And Labour finally adapts to post-industrial
  society

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Tony Blair reinvents Labour Party
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Look at Labours (red line) comeback
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Look at Labours (red line) comeback until 2010
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The Story of an Election

• Labour loses
• 29 of vote down from 35
• Gordon Brown un-popular
• Conservatives gain
• 36 up from 32
• But lack a majority of seats (47)
• Liberal-Democrats about same (22-23)
• Join Conservatives in coalition government!

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2010 Election Conservative Party improves, but
fails to win out-right majorityvery unusual
outcome
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Why would Lib-Dems want PR?

• Liberal Democrats pushed for 2011 Referendum on
  Electoral Reform
• Compromise
• Not proportional representation (PR)
• Alternate Vote (AV) also known as instant
  run-off voting

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Lib-Dems get referendum on AV not PR!

• Mr Clegg said
• "AV is a baby step in the right direction only
  because nothing can be worse than the status quo.
  
• If we want to change British politics once and
  for all, we have got to have a quite simple
  system in which everyone's votes count.

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Simulated outcome of proposed AV voting based
on 2010 survey data