Letter: 15 May, 2015

Election shows democratic flaws

The people have spoken. I would like to congratulate all those who were successful in their bid for election and commiserate with those who, like me, were not successful.

The electorate are the boss, we their humble servants.

However, it was disappointing to learn that the House of Commons our three Members of Parliament will be entering is the most unrepresentative since 1926.

On Thursday, more than one million people voted for the Green Party, and yet they have only one MP.

Almost 3.9 million people voted for Ukip and they also have only one MP.

That’s a combined vote share of more than 15%, and yet between them the Green Party and Ukip have only 0.3% of seats.

In contrast, the Liberal Democrats received less than half that number, a little over 2.4 million, and four times as many MPs; from a 7.9% vote share they won 1.2% of seats.

Although I’m willing to compromise with the SNP, as they only stood candidates in Scotland and their votes to seats ratio would, naturally, be skewed, it is still worth noting they won about 50% of the vote in Scotland and 95% of the seats there.

Our electoral system is bankrupt and that change is desperately needed.

First-past-the-post works well in a two-party election, but last Thursday saw six parties achieve more than one million votes.

Alan Collins,
formerly Ukip candidate for Rochester South and Horsted, Goudhurst Road, Gillingham