Politics - The system for electing MPs to the House of Commons is called First-Past-The-Post.

the leader of their country really is the people’s choice.  There was also uproar that Labour won the general election with a large majority but with a minority vote.  One explanation for this is that people do not think there vote will count if they live in what is known as a safe seat – for example Hale is a relatively safe seat for the conservatives.  Figures back this view point up as the average percentage turnout for the 100 safest seats in the 2001 election was 53.94%, whereas for the 100 closest seats in the 2001 election was just under 10% higher at 63.56%.  This shows that many people don’t think their vote will count in the safest seats.  The public may also think that their vote will be wasted, i.e. if they voted for Labour in Hale.  Reports suggest that 70.3% of votes either did not elect an MP or were surplus to the requirements.  Also half of all MPs elected were elected with less than 50% of the vote so people may be annoyed by this and refuse to vote – a kind of peaceful protest.  So the main reason for a decrease in turnout is because people are getting annoyed with their vote not counting.  This may mean a reformation towards a more proportional representative style of voting as this will mean everyone’s vote counts.Over the past few years many voting system have changed.  But not surprisingly the one that votes Tony Blair into office has stayed exactly the same.  This is because he knows that if he changes the system to proportional representation he will not be the Prime Minister as he would need 50% of the vote and at the present time he has 41.4%.  Scotland and Wales have what is known as the Additional Member System (AMS).  These two have changed or have been set up like this because it is thought to be a more modern way of voting and a much fairer way i.e. the person with the most votes has the most seats.  Our system of voting – first past the post – is quite unfair.  For example the Liberal Democrats get around 20% of the vote but only get 7.6% of the seats in the Commons.  In Scotland the voting system changed as it was thought that if the first past the post system was used Labour would have a massive majority in the Scottish Parliament and the conservatives would have no seats at all even though they had a percentage of the vote.  Another reason pressure has increased is because New Labour promised it in their manifesto.  They wanted to prove that they were different. They promised it and therefore they must deliver it.  At the present time reformation of the UK’s voting system is in the middle of reform.  Labour only seems to want to reform the bits that would benefit them in the future for example the House of Lords but not the General Election as this would not benefit them.Labour in its last manifesto promised electoral reform.  It could argue that it has already done this by changing many other votes apart from the general election one.  But where people really want to see change is in the general election.  However many important cabinet members including John Prescott and Gordon Brown are against PR which is the option available.  Tony Blair takes a middle-way on this policy.  This way he will not upset any of his MPs.  He said ‘I remain to be convinced.’  i.e.  he is not committing to either side.  So if Blair is shown the advantages of PR then he may change the general electoral system to a PR system.  The advantages of PR over first past the post are that you get the true amount of each party that the public want.  It removes the need for negative voting. Electors can vote for their first choice of candidate without the fear of wasting their vote.  As in 2001 it was said that over 70% of votes were thought to be wasted.  It has produced strong and stable governments in Germany (but not single party governments).  It means that no one party gains too much power unless they were to get over 50%.  This quite hard to do as the Labour government now is said to have a massive majority but only actually has just over 40% of the vote.  It prevents MPs being elected on a minority of the vote. In 1997 47.1% of British MPs were elected by less then 50% of the votes in their constituencies. In 1992, 40.1% of MPs were not supported by as many as 50% of their constituents.  But as a result of this it is very hard for laws to get passed as there are many parties each with a share of the seats and none of them have a majority often.  It also does not give the smaller parties anymore seats than they would usually get and they will still not have enough seats to get their points across.  But on the other hand this is a good thing as it is unlikely that extremist parties e.g. BNP will get enough seats to make their voice heard.  There are good and bad points to PR and in my opinion it is unlikely to happen in the near future as there are more pressing matters needing to be addressed by the Labour government for example – Iraq, Health and Education.  It also suits them if not many people vote because they seem to be winning now so why should they change.  Although they believe in change they now seem to be taking all the steps the conservatives did on their policy of “If it ain’t broke, don’t change it”.  This is dangerous as it allows certain things to get massively out of date Bibliography –         Sheets                 www.electoral-reform.org.uk                 Newspapers – The Times BBC Archive