How many votes should earn a party power?

“It’s outrageous that the Lib Dems wield any power and influence having secured just 23% of the popular vote”, goes the argument  – mostly heard from Labour activists at the moment.

I don’t recall them arguing that Labour shouldn’t have had power after 2005, when the party won 35% of the vote, so I wonder at what point a party switches from no power to total power?  Which vote swings it?  Perhaps we could identify the actual voter and let them know?

Hello Mrs Abercromby – we just wanted you to know that your vote will take your party over 33.84% which we’ve decided for this election will give your party complete power in Government.  If you vote for them today, they’ll run everything for the next five years, if not they’ll run nothing.

The answer, of course, is that there is no magic all-or-nothing percentage, it’s decided not so much by how many people vote but by the way the electoral system converts those votes into seats. So in 1951 it wasn’t enough for Labour to win the most votes – an impressive 48.8% – but in 2005, winning 35.2% was fine.

It’s theoretically possible for a party to win a majority of seats on 23% of the vote – had the votes all fallen in just the right places and numbers for all the other parties. Under our system, that would have been legitimate.

So it’s the electoral system, rather than any fundamental principle, which decides the party that governs. Nothing wrong with that – there has to be a system. We can – and will – argue about the best one for our Westminster elections, but none are perfect and all have pros and cons.

Unless you go down the road of stuffing ballot boxes, there’s no system in the world that takes a situation where no party has majority support and magically gives you an outcome where over half the people support one of them. (Alternative Vote simply ensures that the winning candidate isn’t the last choice of a majority of voters, which First Past the Post fails to do).

But doesn’t that make the criticism of the Lib Dems having any power just plain daft?

If you accept that it’s right for Labour to run the country on 35% of the vote because that’s how the system works, surely it’s OK for the Lib Dems to be in coalition on 23% of the vote… because that’s how the system works.

In the UK, we vote for a Member of Parliament. A government then  normally emerges with the support of a majority of MPs.

Those that believe our current system isn’t the best for Westminster are free to campaign for it to be reformed – that’s what I’ll be doing.

But claiming the system is fine whilst moaning about the result it happens to have produced is just as silly as those who complained that the Labour’s 2005-10 government was somehow illegitimate but the electoral system was just fine.

Under our electoral system, it’s entirely reasonable for one party to run the country on 35% of the vote and it’s fine for a party to be a coalition partner with 23% of the vote and 57 MPs.  There are systems that  avoid either or both of those outcomes so, if you don’t like it, stop whining and get campaigning.

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22 Comments

  • What Labour activists are they? I don’t think it’s wrong that David Cameron should have the chance to build a cabinet as he holds the confidence of parliament. That’s how it works, that’s how it should work. I do heavily dislike the fact that you won those seats on a platform that you never believed in. That 23% was for a party that believed in no cuts this year while the recovery was shaky. I understand compromise- Labour has had to compromise with circumstance often enough- but to send your activists our arguing for positions that your leadership never even *intended* to follow through is disgusting.

  • Or “zero” if you count having the right to control the natural resources of this country as “holding power”. Which it is.

  • @Benjamin:

    From the Financial Times article “Gateway to Anguish” –

    “Senior Lib Dems whisper that Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary, never really believed his pre-election rhetoric that cuts should be delayed until 2011.”

    Ed Miliband and Peter Hain have both said that in discussion the Liberals had cuts this year as a condition. This is mere hours after campaigning on the exact opposite platform.

    How much deeper would the Tories have cut? The Tories campaigned on an 80/20 split between cuts and tax rises. 77/33 is pretty close. Your leader Nick Clegg, in an interview with the Spectator in March (Google “Clegg: Heir to Thatcher?”) said that he intended to deal with the deficit with “purely cuts.” Would the Tories have gone deeper than a 100/0 split after promising 80/20?

    We know exactly how it was. And then Liberals like Ashdown have the cheek to blame Labour! Saying it was David Milibands fault for not prostrating himself in front of Clegg at command! Gordon Brown offered his own head to help keep the Tories out, but it wasn’t your place to anoint David Miliband as the next leader, we’re going to choose democratically. Might be for the best not to have gone into coalition with us, if this government doesn’t do too muchlong term damage. No more Blairite economic liberals in the Labour party please.

  • Paul McKeown 4th Jul '10 - 4:56pm

    “Labour hack talking crap shock!”

  • The “Labour hack” in question is George Parker, the Financial Times’ political editor.

    “In 2010 he was elected chairman of the parliamentary press gallery and was shortlisted for the UK Press Gazette awards as political journalist of the year. In a UKPG ranking of the top 50 political journalists, George was rated third in a survey of his peers.”

    He’s a good source. It would be nice if senior Lib Dems had the guts the put their name to their internal dissent but it’s understandable why they wouldn’t.

    And it makes sense- cuts this year was such a huge thing for the Tories, the Liberals weren’t going to give it to them for nothing were they? That’s assuming that you always intended to deal with the Tories, which isn’t unlikely considering that your leader chose to lock himself into favouring the largest party for no constitutional reason. And that Labour was granted an audience with the Lib Dems for only a fraction of the time that the Tories were.

  • And another thing: It’s simply not tenable that the Lib Dems entered government and then found that things were worse so cuts would have to come this year.

    1) They were for cuts this year in the talks with Labour before entering government.
    2) If they honestly believed their previous convictions then the solution to bad news would have been to cut even later. “Cuts too soon will hurt the recovery. Oh, the economy isn’t recovering as quickly as we thought? Cuts now!” doesn’t work.
    3) There was no hint that it was worse. It was in fact substantially better, the deficit was lower than thought.

  • Andrew Suffield 4th Jul '10 - 6:54pm

    Senior Lib Dems whisper that Vince Cable, the Lib Dem Business Secretary, never really believed

    A story about Lib Dems passing rumours. Not even a story about what Cable actually believes, just that some people have been doubting what he believes. Not much of a story. It does not support your claims about what the party actually believed, since it’s not even about that.

    a party that believed in no cuts this year while the recovery was shaky

    That was never the party’s position. Anybody who said that was wrong.

    Ed Miliband and Peter Hain have both said that in discussion the Liberals had cuts this year as a condition.

    Certainly, there were a number of very specific cuts listed in the manifesto. Let’s start with ID cards: a huge cut, saving a lot of money. Shutting down those bogus projects was a manifesto commitment and should definitely have been something that was sought in the coalition discussions.

    And then Liberals like Ashdown have the cheek to blame Labour!

    Labour certainly seems to think it’s acceptable to blame the Lib Dems. Don’t start a mud-slinging contest when you’re the party that crashed the economy, I guess.

    There was no hint that it was worse. It was in fact substantially better, the deficit was lower than thought.

    Citation needed.

  • “A story about Lib Dems passing rumours. Not even a story about what Cable actually believes, just that some people have been doubting what he believes. Not much of a story. It does not support your claims about what the party actually believed, since it’s not even about that.”

    Vince Cable sending his activists out campaigning on a position that he reportedly never believed in certainly supports my point that the leadership misled the voters and activists. And all the evidence points in that direction.

    “That was never the party’s position. Anybody who said that was wrong.”

    Are you senior to Vince Cable and Nick Clegg when it comes to setting your party’s policy?

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8565722.stm- “Lib Dems will not back early cuts, says Nick Clegg” is the incredibly accurate title of this pre-election news article.

    “He added: “We think that merrily slashing now is an act of economic masochism.

    “If anyone had to rely on our support, and we were involved in government, of course we would say no.”

    Of course you would Clegg.

    “Certainly, there were a number of very specific cuts listed in the manifesto. Let’s start with ID cards: a huge cut, saving a lot of money. Shutting down those bogus projects was a manifesto commitment and should definitely have been something that was sought in the coalition discussions.”

    That’s not relevent to what your responding to at all. They wanted to start cutting to reduce the deficit this year in talks with Labour.

    “Labour certainly seems to think it’s acceptable to blame the Lib Dems. Don’t start a mud-slinging contest when you’re the party that crashed the economy, I guess.”

    Ashdown is wrong to blame Labour for somehow “wrecking” the chances of a Lib-Lab coalition. I didn’t support such a move in any case, but he’s wrong. The deficit before the economic crash was mediocre and manageable, Labour failed where it bought into your free market orthodoxy only.

    “Citation needed.”

    Have you not been following current affairs at all?

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6080418/osbornes-headache.thtml

    There, the Spectator- one of yours. You can’t blame them for being pro-Labour.

  • And while I’m here- from St Vince

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jun/03/vince-cable-pledge-to-help-business

    Where he says that he changed his view from before the election about early cuts. He’s lying of course, but not even Vince Cable is trying to say that they campaigned on what they’re actually delivering when it comes to cutting this year or waiting until it’s less risky.

  • Andrew Suffield 5th Jul '10 - 3:58am

    Vince Cable sending his activists out campaigning on a position that he reportedly never believed in certainly supports my point that the leadership misled the voters and activists. And all the evidence points in that direction.

    The only evidence you have cited does not show that at all, as has already been covered.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8565722.stm- “Lib Dems will not back early cuts, says Nick Clegg” is the incredibly accurate title of this pre-election news article.

    Anybody who listens to the interview will note that it’s not very accurate at all (the interviewer kept trying to make Clegg say the Lib Dems wouldn’t support the Tories, and Clegg kept refusing to be trapped that way), and Clegg said the same thing it said in the manifesto and that all the big names said: the timing of cuts will be based on the state of the economy.

    That’s not relevent to what your responding to at all. They wanted to start cutting to reduce the deficit this year in talks with Labour.

    Cite your source. The comments you mentioned do not make that claim; those were about Lib Dem manifesto promises to kill certain projects. I realise that it may be shocking to you that the Lib Dems were negotiating to keep their manifesto promises, but some people think that is important.

    http://www.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/6080418/osbornes-headache.thtml

    There, the Spectator- one of yours. You can’t blame them for being pro-Labour.

    Your desperate insistence on tribalism as the important factor here is telling.

    Regardless, this article is based on nothing more than comparing the headline figures in projections, and skips over the fact that they’re projections based on different assumptions. These figures do not indicate that the situation has improved, they’re just based on different sets of plans – the “Budget 2010” forecast is worse than the “OBR” forecast because the former is based on Labour’s plans and the latter is based on the plans for the recent emergency budget. It is unsurprising that the emergency budget has improved matters, since that was the objective.

    your free market orthodoxy

    That’s the Tories. I’ve never been a free market believer. Free markets only work for scarce commodity goods. They do not work at all for surplus non-fungible goods.

  • Mike – Gordon Brown wrecked any prospect of Lib Dem Labour co-operation is 1997 when he stopped electoral reform and a possible coalition, in 2001, when he blocked the Labour commitment to voting reform again, in 2005, when surprise, surprise not even Labour took their pledge seriously, and again when he became leader and couldn’t even go as far as AV, and again after the expenses scandal, when he blcoked electoral reform, and again after Labour MPs plotted to oust him, and he watered down a more to AV to a referendum on AV sometime in the future.

    So please, please, please, vent your fury on the right people.

    Face facts, 13 years of Labour have been a disater for the economy, for equality and for working people

  • Matthew Huntbach 5th Jul '10 - 11:24am


    “It’s outrageous that the Lib Dems wield any power and influence having secured just 23% of the popular vote”, goes the argument – mostly heard from Labour activists at the moment.

    I suppose this is heard from them in the brief gaps between when they are expressing outrage that we do not have complete power and influence and so we are in a position where not everything done by the government is what we would do if we had a majority.

    Now if this line is at all common, we must push it again and again as what Labour is really about. Anyone who doesn’t want coalition, who support distortional representation on the grounds it’s better to have government of one party, has made clear where they stand now – they would rather right now have Cameron as PM with a majority and so the only people breathing down his neck and influencing him against his better judgment being the Tory right.

    So, loud and clear, let us trumpet this so that anyone thinking of supporting Labour knows it – a vote for Labour is a vote for a majority Labour government as first preference and a majority Tory government as second preference. Labour have no right whatsoever to complain about what we are allowing the coalition to do so long as they oppose proportional representation, because their real position is that they would prefer it to be even more right-wing than it is without us being any sort of moderating influence. It is simply not logically coherent both to say they oppose the very idea of there being a moderating influence due to coalitions being more likely and to say we have not sufficiently used what moderating influence our involvement in the coalition gives us.

  • @Andrew Suffield: “The only evidence you have cited does not show that at all, as has already been covered.”

    Um, yes it does. Talk that he never believed it in the senior ranks of your own party? The fact that only hours after campaigning on no early cuts your party was making cuts this year a condition for coalition with Labour? The fact that their explanation for why they’ve changed their mind doesn’t stack up whatsoever? Put two and two together son, the answer’s four.

    “Anybody who listens to the interview will note that it’s not very accurate at all (the interviewer kept trying to make Clegg say the Lib Dems wouldn’t support the Tories, and Clegg kept refusing to be trapped that way), and Clegg said the same thing it said in the manifesto and that all the big names said: the timing of cuts will be based on the state of the economy.”

    So you didn’t read this- He said his party had identified £15bn worth of reductions in public spending to help reduce the deficit.

    But he said cutting too early would risk “pulling out the carpet from under the feet” of the British economy, which he said was still “too fragile”.
    He added: “We think that merrily slashing now is an act of economic masochism.
    “If anyone had to rely on our support, and we were involved in government, of course we would say no.”

    Because that says to me that if Cable was in a position where he was involved in government and asked to cut now, he would say no. He wouldn’t call for more. How inaccurate can it be when it’s Cable’s own words?

    “Cite your source. The comments you mentioned do not make that claim; those were about Lib Dem manifesto promises to kill certain projects. I realise that it may be shocking to you that the Lib Dems were negotiating to keep their manifesto promises, but some people think that is important.”

    Keep your manifesto promises! Are you joking? Your party never even intended to see them through according to senior figures in your own party. Anyway, here are those links-

    Peter Hain saying it- http://timesonline.typepad.com/comment/2010/06/on-staurday-night-i-caught-an-interview-with-peter-hain-in-which-he-made-what-appeared-to-be-an-extraordinary-claim—-i-th.html

    Peter Hain being the bloke who called for Labour people to vote Lib Dem and was calling for Lib-Labbery before the election.

    Ed Miliband- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/ed-miliband-david-and-i-will-look-back-on-this-and-laugh-2005434.html

    “In the days after the election, Mr Miliband was on Labour’s coalition negotiating team. There have been a lot of rumours about why the talks broke down, but Mr Miliband, for the first time, says that from the outset the Lib Dem team was totally committed to Tory plans to start cutting the deficit this year, despite during the election tacking more closely to Labour’s position of continuing to spend to boost economic growth.

    “I haven’t talked about this publicly, but… one of the biggest sticking points was around their frankly completely macho position on the question of [cutting] the deficit, saying it needs to be now and it needs to be faster. They were completely cavalier about that.”

    He claims that two Lib Dem negotiators in particular – Chris Huhne, now Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and David Laws, who resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury earlier this month – were “very vociferous” about cutting the deficit now. ” Is the relevant part.

    “Your desperate insistence on tribalism as the important factor here is telling.”

    *My* desperate tribalism? Earlier in this very thread an article from the Political Editor of the Financial Times was completely discounted by Liberals, one saying that he must be a “Labour hack”. Since then I have been careful to only pick right-wing sources where both are available.

    “Regardless, this article is based on nothing more than comparing the headline figures in projections, and skips over the fact that they’re projections based on different assumptions. These figures do not indicate that the situation has improved, they’re just based on different sets of plans – the “Budget 2010″ forecast is worse than the “OBR” forecast because the former is based on Labour’s plans and the latter is based on the plans for the recent emergency budget. It is unsurprising that the emergency budget has improved matters, since that was the objective.”

    You’re completely wrong. The article goes out of its way to emphasise that the analysis is before Osborne’s budget and on Darlings plans. The whole point of the article is that the extra cuts aren’t necessary at all.

    “That’s the Tories. I’ve never been a free market believer. Free markets only work for scarce commodity goods. They do not work at all for surplus non-fungible goods.”

    Again, are you senior to Nick Clegg, Vince Cable, Danny Alexander, David Laws, etc in your party? Read the Orange Book. Read anything.They are all extreme free marketeers.

  • @Mouse: I can’t stand the Liberal Democrats, I never wanted you any where near government. You’re wrong about what stopped a Lib-Lab alliance in 1997 though- Blair and Mandelson wanted to ally with the Liberal Democrats, with the view to eventually merging, in order to kill off any remaining socialism, sever the trade union link and keep the Left of Labour a minority. They got such a big majority though that they didn’t need the Liberals’ help to smother the Left, and they couldn’t justify it to their own party. That’s why it didn’t happen in 1997.

    “Face facts, 13 years of Labour have been a disater for the economy, for equality and for working people”

    Nonsense. Labour made free markets the best they could be. Inequality has at least slowed, which is the best I think we can hope for under a globalizing market system. They’ve done a lot for working people- minimum wage (You opposed), tax credits, in work benefits, jobs. There is no comparison between the Liberals and Labour, even if Labour isn’t perfect, no one’s saying they were.

  • Andrew Suffield 6th Jul '10 - 8:25am

    Talk that he never believed it in the senior ranks of your own party?

    Hearsay: not evidence.

    So you didn’t read this

    The written article is misleading cherry-picked quotes. You need to listen to the recorded interview on that page – the interviewer was trying to generate precisely the angle you’re pushing, and Clegg was refusing to be pushed into it.

    Your party never even intended to see them through according to senior figures in your own party.

    Again with the hearsay.

    *My* desperate tribalism? […] Since then I have been careful to only pick right-wing sources where both are available.

    Yes, exactly that desperate insistence on tribalism. You have consistently ignored the possibility of examining the strength of evidence or thinking about what facts have been established and what that tells you, and instead throw out hearsay and rumour, and the only thing you ever talk about is the political alignment of the site on which it appears. You aren’t even trying to figure out what the truth is, and I don’t think you care.

    I’m not wasting any further time on this discredited pseudonymous commenter; interested readers are encouraged to think twice about whatever rants he posts.

  • “Hearsay: not evidence.”

    Come on. That combined with the fact that your party were pushing it in coalition talks with Labour combined with the fact that the reasons they’ve given for supposedly changing their minds do not stack up at all and smack of a planned excuse. We know for certain that their excuse is false, so we know this is something they have lied about.

    “The written article is misleading cherry-picked quotes. You need to listen to the recorded interview on that page – the interviewer was trying to generate precisely the angle you’re pushing, and Clegg was refusing to be pushed into it.”

    “But he said cutting too early would risk “pulling out the carpet from under the feet” of the British economy, which he said was still “too fragile”.
    He added: “We think that merrily slashing now is an act of economic masochism.
    “If anyone had to rely on our support, and we were involved in government, of course we would say no.” ”

    Which of that do you not understand? “Of course we would say no” means that he would, of course, say no. It doesn’t mean that he would say “yes please and can I have some more”.

    “Again with the hearsay.”

    From a solid source saying something that ties in completely with the other things that we know.

    “Yes, exactly that desperate insistence on tribalism. You have consistently ignored the possibility of examining the strength of evidence or thinking about what facts have been established and what that tells you, and instead throw out hearsay and rumour, and the only thing you ever talk about is the political alignment of the site on which it appears. You aren’t even trying to figure out what the truth is, and I don’t think you care.”

    Nonsense. Read this thread. I have pointed out the right-wing nature of the links I have given because posters on this site have refused to acknowledge an article from the *Financial Times* saying that it must have been written by a “Labour hack”. That is why I have given the political alignment of my sources.

    You have done nothing to address any of the facts- which are

    1) The respected political editor of the Financial Times George Parker, certainly not someone who can be dismissed as a “Labour hack” has said that he’s heard from senior Lib Dems that Vince Cable never believed that cuts should wait until the recovery was secure.
    2) Ed Miliband and Peter Hain who were part of the discussions with the Liberal Democrats have said that they were making early cuts a condition. This was mere hours after campaigning on the idea that early cuts would hurt the recovery.
    3) The Liberal Democrat excuse- that they got in and “things were worse than thought” doesn’t hold water for the three reasons I have already said and that have gone ignored-
    – Things are actually better than expected on all counts.
    – Their previous apparent convictions would mean that if there really was bad news, you would need to delay cuts further until the recovery was secure.
    – They were arguing for cuts before entering government. This smacks of a pre-prepared excuse to feed to the media.
    4) It makes absolute tactical sense. The Liberal Democrats wouldn’t have got so much from the Tories if they had just given them cuts this year for nothing.
    5) Cable himself has said that his position is different now, your argument that “of course we would say no” actually means something other than it does is one not even shared by the person you’re trying to defend.

    You’re all over the place here. You’re trying to say that the Liberal Democrats never actually meant that early cuts would hurt the recovery and shouldn’t be carried out when in that link I gave Vince Cable himself says that it was his position and he’s changed his mind. His story for why and when your party changed its mind doesn’t stand up to any scrutiny and respected journalists are saying that senior figures in your party don’t believe Cable to have been honest about his intentions before the election. There are clear tactical benefits for the Lib Dems to have done so.

    Answer all five points.

  • And a sixth point. Read this- http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/22/lib-dem-leadership-cuts

    Especially this bit- “Moreover, it has been suggested that Danny Alexander advocated early cuts in talks with both Labour and the Conservatives. If that is true, it should surprise nobody who took part in debate on public spending at the 2008 Liberal Democrat conference. There, well before the fiscal crisis struck home, the leadership argued for cutting public spending on the basis that it was too high. The party, which (relative to other parties) is unideological, under-factionalised and leadership-loyal, backed the leadership after a vigorous debate. Yet despite that party policy the Liberal Democrat manifesto (and I was a member of group which drafted it) adapted to the fiscal crisis, taking the same position as Labour on the scale and pace of cuts. It said: “If spending is cut too soon, it would undermine the much-needed recovery and cost jobs.” The public can be forgiven for having believed that the manifesto was the party’s position.”

    Are you going to dismiss Richard Grayson as a “Labour hack”?

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