The following little gem emerged when listening to the radio today. Under our ‘first past the post’ system there are about 150 marginal seats that are considered vital targets by all parties. All it takes to change a government in the UK is for 200,000 people across those seats to change their minds in a similar direction. The voters in the remaining 500 seats may as well stay at home.
All the money, energy, personal appearances and canvassing will be concentrated on those 150 seats.
What a farce. It is little wonder that so many people are disengaged and disenchanted when their vote counts for very little. The last Labour Government had a majority of over 60 with just over 21% of the electorate’s support.
Safe seats are the home of the party apparatchik, the party crawler, the arrogant, the lobby fodder and the out of touch MPs.
A proper democratic election (insert preferred system here) where every vote counts would help reduce some of our worst excesses and engage voters in a more meaningful way.
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