The government’s level of support among voters is therefore small. But taking the electorate as a whole, the proportion of eligible people who cast a vote to return the government is extremely small – only 21.6 per cent, or 9.6 million out of an electorate of 44.4 million. In terms of votes actually cast for Labour, this is the lowest total of any post-1945 election with the single exception of 1983. Again, the 1922 election and the string of recent elections since October 1974 have seen record low shares of the electorate giving support to a government. Even among this company, 2005 stands out as producing a government with exceptionally few votes. The present electoral system may allow the government to carry on regardless for a 4-5 year term, despite its low poll in 2001 and the withdrawal of enthusiasm signified by the drop in the Labour Party share of the vote of 5.5 percentage points from 2001 to 2005.
Turnout, at 61.3 per cent, recovered a little from the depths it had reached in 2001. But there is small consolation in this being the second worst since 1918. Turnout should have increased even more under the circumstances. The polls and the dynamic of the campaign suggested more of a contest than 2001, when opinion surveys found that a foregone conclusion turned many electors away from voting. There was a large increase in postal voting, which in theory should have helped turnout. The political temperature, in the new circumstances after the 2003 Iraq war, seemed higher than in sleepy June 2001, several months before the attack on the World Trade Center. And yet there was only an improvement of 2 percentage points. In historical terms, 2005 is clearly in the relegation zone of the turnout league table of elections in the last century. Even in relatively recent elections turnout has been much higher – 77.7 per cent in 1992 for instance. 2005’s turnout, like 2001, was about 60 per cent, in contrast to previous elections such as 1970 when a turnout of just over 70 per cent was regarded as poor. The problem of public disengagement from politics has clearly not been solved.
Labour were the most successful at translating votes into seats – the First Past the Post (FPTP) electoral system gave a large ‘winner’s bonus’ to the largest single party. Once again, the principal victims of the system were smaller parties with evenly spread support, namely the Liberal Democrats, UKIP and Ulster Unionists.
The Conservatives were slightly under-represented, in that if they had won seats exactly in proportion to their vote they would have won 208. The Liberal Democrats had many fewer seats than their share of the vote among the electorate justified – an exactly proportional distribution would have given them 142. Labour were massively over-represented: a proportional allocation would have given them 227 seats rather than 356.
Small parties with relatively evenly spread support are penalized under FPTP. UKIP was clearly the fourth party in terms of votes, but it failed to win or even come close in a single seat. Seven parties with fewer votes than UKIP, and two Independents, elected members of parliament. The Green Party stood many fewer candidates, conscious that the system was unfair to them, and many voters were deprived of the chance of choosing them. Small parties with concentrated support, like the SNP and Plaid Cymru, did better. The failure to represent small but significant points of view contrasts the Westminster Parliament with the more proportional bodies in Northern Ireland and Scotland where minorities have a voice.
Not only was there an enormous gap between turnout in the safe and marginal seats in 2001, but it actually became wider in 2005. Turnout in the 10 most marginal seats was 17.4 percentage points higher than in the 10 safest seats. Further, nearly a third of the entire rise among the 10 safest seats was because one of them, Blaenau Gwent, suddenly became competitive with the decision of the sitting Assembly Member Peter Law to challenge the new Labour candidate. In some inner city seats turnout remained very low, although it generally lifted a little after the nadir of 2001. The constituency with the lowest turnout was once again Liverpool Riverside (41.5%, compared to only 34.1% in 2001), followed by Manchester Central (42.0%, up from 39.1% in 2001). In 32 constituencies, turnout in 2005 fell below 50 per cent, compared to 67 in the 2001 election – but none at all in 1997.
In conclusion in relation to all other elections in Britain throughout history, excluding to a certain extent the 1922 election, the Labour victory in May 2005 was hugely unusual; however it can be argued that this can be moderately explained on historically the lowest turn out ever and the current First Past The Post System amongst other things.
