CV&D report - British Elections

[New Democracy]

Dear list members,

     Here is another report from CV&D that you may not have received.

Don,

Donald E Davison of New Democracy at http://www.mich.com/~donald
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5/5/97

To:     CV&D Organizers and activists
From:   Rob Richie
Re;     British elections

As many of you have noticed, the British elections
provided another demonstration of disproportionality
in action. Note the following:

Party     Seats Won     Seats %         Votes %
-----     ---------     -------         -------
Labour     419          63.6            43.1
Conserv.   165          25.0            30.6
Lib.-Dem.   46           7.1            16.7
Other*      29           4.5             9.6

    * Scottish National; Northern Ireland: Sinn Fein, Ulster Unionist,
      Democratic Unionist, Social Democratic and Labor; Welsh National,
      independents

Now, note the following poll results from the British Economist, based
on a polls done on April 25-28, just before the election.

Strongly support PR      - 27
Tend to support PR       - 38
TOTAL                    - 65

Tend to oppose PR        - 11
Strongly oppose          - 6
TOTAL                    - 17

Since Labour has pledged to hold a national referendum on PR, this
certainly looks good. We'll have to see, of course. More speculation
on Labour's possible actions in a message in the next day or two.

Finally, here is the press release from the Electoral Reform Society
in Britain, after the elections. (Note: the ERS national numbers
do not reflect the vote in northern Ireland.)

Electoral Reform Society Press Release

1997 General Election:
A Triumph for Democracy?

News Release:                        Immediate Release:

The Election may have been a triumph for Tony Blair and the Labour
Party, but did the British voters get what they voted for and was it a
triumph for democracy?

The Election saw the lowest turnout since 1935 with 71.6%* of those
eligible voting. Turnout dropped in over  97% of all British
Constituencies. Turnout on average was lower in safe seats where there
was little campaigning, with voters less willing to go out to vote when
they knew their vote would make no difference to the result. For example
in Wales the seat with the lowest turnout was Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney
with 65.1%, which also had the highest majority in Wales ( 81.6%). This
compares to a turnout of 82.2% in the hotly contested three way marginal
of Brecon and Radnorshire.

14,697,666 (48.2%) of those who voted in the Election elected no one
with their votes. Nearly 60% of all Conservative voters (5,748,254)
elected no one with their vote.

302 (or 47.1%) of British MP's gained less than 50% of the vote. This is
a increase from 1992 where only 261 MP's had less than 50% of the vote.
Michael Moore was elected for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale with the
lowest % of the vote of any MP with 32.6%. Joe Benton in Bootle takes
the prize for the MP with the highest % vote: 82.9%.

The Labour Party won the election with only 44.4% of the vote but gained
65.2% of the seats. Tony Blair only gained 0.5% more votes than Margaret
Thatcher in 1979, but won 12.2% more seats.

The Conservative Party gained 31.5% of the vote, but won only 25.7% of
the seats. This is just the third time since the War that the second
party has gained fewer seats than their share of the vote (the others
being 1945 and 1966). The Conservative Party gained its lowest number of
MP's since 1906.  They obtained 17.5% of the vote in Scotland and 19.6%
of the vote in Wales, but gained no seats in either.

The Liberal Democrats gained 17.2% of vote and won 7.2%of the seats. The
Lib Dem vote declined from 1992, but the number of seats won increased
from 20 to 46. This gave the Liberal Democrats the highest third party
representation in Parliament since 1929. This can be contrasted with the
fact that the Lib Dem vote was the lowest since 1979.

This election shows that our capricious  first-past-the-post voting
system continues to distort the outcome of British elections,
misrepresenting the views of the people.

For more information or comment contact:
Peter Facey, Development Officer.

                          End of CV&D report