Re: @codejunky - RE: Brexit is all a sham like the Scotland referendum.
"'almost' 37% is a pitiable basis to run the country on. Hardly democratic at all"
This assertion would be true if there was ab initio a simple binary choice, but this is not the case. We live in a country where about 40 million people are entitled to stand as an MP, but not many do. Those that do tend, but are not obliged, to do so under the banner of one of the political groupings that we call parties, and whose policies are relatively fluid, following public opinion in many cases. In order to ensure that any government was elected by more than say 50% of those who actually voted could take several rounds of voting and doesn't give any guarantee of any party satisfying the 50% threshold.
Having a single round first past the post system ensures that some party or collection of parties will have a claim to form a government. It isn't perfect, but given the facts above, a single party getting 37% of the vote is pretty impressive. FPTP is the system that the parties sign up to, and is the basis on which the election is fought.
If the basis of the election was changed then it is likely that the parties would simply their strategies, so that instead of targeting a number of marginal constituencies they would seek to maximise the vote in the constituencies that they are strongest (on the basis of a higher return on campaigning effort) where at present the turnout is lower than it might otherwise be because the incumbent looks certain to win.
So is 37% of the vote and 51% of the seats democratic? I would say it's not bad.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
