Poll List: New polls show Labour as the biggest party in a hung parliament

How can a tory 5 point lead make Labour the biggest party in a hung parliment. Would Labour feel proud being the first term George Bush of British politics? Ignoring the will of the voters to retain power on a technical issue?

@ Robert Young,

No British government since 1950 has been elected by a majority of the electorate.

Roughly, of those who vote, since 1979 about 40 per cent of those voting have voted for the "winner" and 60 per cent have voted against.

That's "First past the post."

You (and a lot of others to be fair) are missing the point, it's not about failing to get the majority of the votes, it's about failing to get the plurality of the votes.

Only three governments have come to power lacking a plurality of the votes, in 1929, 1951 and Feb 1974.

In each of these elections the govenment was no more than 1% behind in the popular vote.

Could a government be 5% behind in the popular vote and still be said to have a mandate?

I think that the problem for Labour is that it will not have a majority in England, it will be dependent on the Scots and Welsh loyalist MPs. This will drive the wedge in the Union even deeper and the call for an English Parliament shriller, in the end the Tories will give up on the Union as the dependee members have become an irritation and no longer of political value.

Roger, we have a UK parliament, if the Tories fall short of an overall majority or a very thin one then they will rely on the Ulster unionists

Now if you want to cmapign for the total breakup of the UK, then do so, but the real reason Tory supporters oppose the justice of PR is that the Tories know theyu would struggle ever to get win an outright majority (so would Labour) and LD's more inclined to side with Labour.

FPTP is dead, it is just some have not realised it

"FPTP is dead, it is just some have not realised it"
It works in the US - possibly because of the two party system. In the UK we have a three party system which makes it much more difficult to gain 50% of the vote - but if either the Tories and Labour get 45%-%50 they'd still have an effective mandate if not an absolute majority.

The LDs have two wings, one of the left and one on the right and which way they finally jump in case of a hung parliament is one of the most unpredictable factors in the election.

Emirates there is no justiifcation why the lib dems picked up only 60 seats on 20% of the vote, not that we picked up a 60 seat majority on 37% of the vote

I also believe PR would make policitcs more lively and more accountable as every vote counts even in safe seats, now only 1 million votes around the country count.

The problem is we have a constituency system - so every vote should be local. It is a mistake to look at the British system at a national level and call it unfair, because it is over 600 separate individual contests. In each seat a party needs to gain a plurality and they have all have an even chance to win there. We elect an individual MPs and they then go to vote in parliament for whoever they believe can form a gov’t. Mps have been known to change parties, and parties have been known to break-up during the duration of a parliament.

The Lib Dems have an equal chance in every constituency and over the past decade or so they have become much better at fighting them as their number of seats have gone up. I still refuse to take them entirely seriously as a political force until they decide which way they are going to fall left or right (perhaps a hung parliament will finally bring this to the head and lead to mass walk-out of one wing of the party). I also don’t have much sympathy with the Tory argument - if Labour get more seats with 5% less of the vote it is because they have fought the individual constituencies more successfully.

My general point was just that a party which may not have %50 but close to it does have an effective popular mandate. The problem at the 2005 GE was the two biggest parties both failed to get anywhere close to that number.

@ Emirates

It may work in gubernatorial and House elections, but the electoral system for Presidential elections is different, based on electoral colleges, so that the popular vote is, to some extent, irrelevant - by design, as the authors of the constitution intended to moderate 'popular' influence.

Yeah, sorry - overlooked that - although in effect President's are so dictated to by Congress the house elections are generally far more significant (if given less attention) than the Presidential ones. Presidents may have Air Force One but Bush couldn't have declared war in Iraq without Congress, and Obama needed to end up begging/bribing individual Congressman to vote for his healthcare package. I've not heard many Americans advocating PR - so presumably they are fairly happy with their FPTP congressional elections. I think its a system that tends to work if there are only 2 major parties.

With the Presidential elections they winning candidate usually have either a full majority or something close to a majority of votes cast. Although that would work less well if there were 4 or 5 serious candidates rather than 2. When it comes to electing Presidents there is something to be said for the "second ballot" French system, where the President is guarenteed a mandate following the second round of voting.

Gore v. Bush? Popular vote nationwide v. electoral college delegate votes?

The problem with Bush/Gore was the question of whether they had a majority in the electoral college (who won Florida?). Even though Gore got slightly more popular vote the point I was making still stands. Bush got 47.9% - which isn't far off 50%. If on the other hand there had been four major candidates and Bush had ended up becoming President with only 27.9% of the vote there would have been virtually no mandate.

I still prefer the French system for Presidents, but obviously the US is attached to the Electoral College because of the states rights angle. Gore still can't complain (Florida aside) because he didn't win enough of the 51 mini-elections that took place to become President.

'Gore still can't complain (Florida aside) because he didn't win enough of the 51 mini-elections that took place to become President.'

Not my point really - just the difference between winning the overall popular vote and the way the delegates vote in the electoral college, but it's not pertinent here, as you say. Just as a matter of information, there have occasionally been third-party candidates for President, such as Ross Perrot and George Wallace, although, as you say, it is basically a two-party system. I'm really not au fait with the French presidential elections, although I do wonder what might be the situation now if Segalene Royal had won.

No Robert it would be dreadful the same as 43% of the vote gave a 200 seat majority, I hope you agree FPTP is a discredited and dead system

Read what we say on here: we are almost all in favour of electoral reform, preferably some form of PR. It's the Tories who oppose that.

With ICM, following Optimum,following Yougov, following Bpix....it looks like for the Tories "Gold Standard" of polling they are still talking out of their ARS.

http://redrag1.blogspot.com/2010/02/red-rag-answer-appears-to-why-angus.html

RR, don;t worry those on Con home have got the message

frankly the polls show an whole lot of anti party sentiment, we have totally screwed our trust with the public (we as in those of us involved and like politics)

It will be interesting to see the polls for later in the week after the Dispatches programme has had it's full impact.

one thing Labour supporters can be pleased about is that the three MP culprits were suspended the same night, by contrast it seems Mr Cameron has dithered on Butter Man. I haven't heard the radio news yet this morning, but up till last night unctuous Sir John was still a Tory MP

I really hope, though, that as many people as possible sign the "Fire Byers" petition to have him shorn of his Privy Council membership, so that gives one less thing to brag about when he is trying to sell his services.

I assume Ms Hewitt is also a P.C and I think the same fate should befall her - she might be less attractive to BUPA, Lloyds Pharmacy etc etc then.

Too many Cameron flounderings like that on Channel 4 last night can only diminish his standing even further.